JUL  -  6 


"EDINBURGH    1910 


5> 


<L 


A  Publication  Without  Parallel 
in  the  Literature  of  Missions 


The  Reports  of  the  Commission 

OF  THE 

World  Missionary  Conference 


This  is  far  more  than  a  report  of  the  re- 
remarkable  Conference  held  in  Edinburgh. 

Eight  most  important  commissions  were 
appointed  two  years  before  the  convention 
date.  Each  commission  presented  its  report 
in  written  form,  giving  the  results  of  its  world 
wide  correspondence  and  study  as  related  to 
its  special  subject. 

Each  separate  volume  excepting  the  ninth 
forms  the  report  of  a  commission  as  finally 
revised  after  the  fullest  discussion  and  criti- 
cism in  convention. 

The  ninth  volume  contains  a  summary, 
addresses,  and  index  of  the  whole. 

The  set  presents  a  library  on  missions  far 
more  important  and  comprehensive  than  any- 
thing ever  attempted  before. 


Nine  Volumes,  Each  75  cents  net;   postage,  Q  cents. 
Complete  Set,  $3.00  net;  postage,  70  cents. 


ECHOES   FROM 

EDINBURGH,  1910 

AN   ACCOUNT   AND   INTERPRETATION 
OF  THE  WORLD   MISSIONARY 

CONFERENCE -  _ 


*     NOV  23  1910 


W.  H.  T.  VGAIRDNER~<?c>  ' 


AUTHOR  OF 

D.    M.    THORNTON  ;    A   STUDY   IN   MISSIONARY    IDEALS   AND    METHODS  ' 
AND    "THE    REPROACH    OF   ISLAM  " 


WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION 
BY 

JOHN   R.   MOTT,   LL.D. 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming   H.   Revell   Company 


London  and  Ed 


i  n  b  u  r  g  h 


AUTHOR'S   EDITION 


New  York :  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago :  80  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto :  25  Richmond  St.,  W. 
London: 21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


PREFATORY  NOTE 
ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  COMMITTEE 

The  Conference  at  Edinburgh  was,  as  is  well  known, 
mainly  a  consultative  gathering.  Its  primary  purpose 
was  the  study  of  the  great  missionary  problems  of  the 
present  day  by  leaders  in  the  missionary  enterprise  at 
home  and  abroad,  in  order  that  they  might  see  more 
clearly  what  was  immediately  required  for  the  fulfilling 
of  the  charge  to  "  disciple  all  nations."  But  as  the 
plans  for  the  Conference  matured,  it  became  evident  that 
indirectly  another  great  end  would  be  served  by  it.  The 
dignity,  immensity,  and  importance  of  the  missionary 
enterprise  appeared  in  fresh  and  impressive  aspects. 
Facts  rose  into  prominence  which  were  seen  to  be  of 
vital  importance  for  the  whole  Church  of  Christ.  The 
very  holding  of  the  Conference  was  seen  to  have  a  signifi- 
cance which,  if  it  could  only  be  brought  home  to  the 
imagination  of  the  Church,  might  give  it  a  new  and 
thrilling  vision  of  the  work  before  it. 

Hence  the  resolution  was  taken  to  issue  a  volume 
written  for  the  people  of  the  Church,  a  volume  which 
might  present  the  gist  of  the  Conference  in  such  fashion 
as  to  make  vivid  to  those  who  were  not  present  at  it 
what  the  Conference  really  was  and  did  and  saw  and 
reached  after  and  believed  and  hoped — a  volume  which 
should  be  at  once  a  narrative,  an  interpretation,  and  a 
summons.  What  was  desired  was  that  the  Church  should 
see  the  Conference  in  its  relation  to  the  present  position 


EDINBURGH  1910 

and  advance  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  in  the  world,  so 
as  to  see  at  the  same  time  its  own  urgent  and  imperative 
duty. 

After  full  consideration,  the  Committee  invited  the 
Rev.  W.  H.  T.  Gairdner,  B.A.,  of  Cairo,  to  undertake  the 
task  of  writing  this  book,  and  they  were  greatly  en- 
couraged by  his  acceptance  of  it.  They  have  to  ac- 
knowledge the  kindness  of  the  Committee  of  the  Church 
Missionary  Society  in  releasing  him  from  other  work  and 
allowing  him  to  prolong  his  visit  to  Scotland  that  he  might 
accomplish  this  service.  It  was  thought  best  that  Mr 
Gairdner  should  be  perfectly  free  to  present  the  message 
of  the  Conference  in  the  way  that  seemed  to  him  most 
true  and  impressive.  The  Committee  accordingly  have 
no  responsibility  for  the  views  expressed  in  the  book. 
At  the  same  time  the  Committee  desire  to  record  their 
grateful  appreciation  of  the  sympathy  shown  by  Mr 
Gairdner  with  the  object  they  had  in  view,  and  of  the 
enthusiasm  and  industry  with  which  he  devoted  himself, 
both  during  the  Conference  and  in  the  subsequent  weeks, 
to  the  service  so  generously  undertaken  by  him,  and  now 
in  this  volume  so  admirably  fulfilled.  It  is  theirs  to 
send  the  volume  forth  ;  and  they  do  so  with  the  earnest 
prayer  that,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  it  may  give  to 
many  thousands  of  readers  a  new  vision  of  the  central 
place  of  Christian  missions  in  the  current  history  of  the 
world,  and  of  what  God  would  have  them  now  to  do  for 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  AMERICAN 
EDITION 

The  World  Missionary  Conference,  held  at  Edinburgh 
in  June,  has  been  characterized  by  discriminating 
Christian  leaders  as  the  most  notable  gathering  in  the 
interest  of  the  world-wide  expansion  of  Christianity 
ever  held,  not  only  in  missionary  annals,  but  in  all 
Christian  annals.  Judged  by  the  impression  which  it 
has  made  upon  those  who  came  within  range  of  its 
direct  influence,  this  is  doubtless  an  unexaggerated 
estimate.  The  messages,  the  work,  and  the  meaning 
of  such  a  Conference  must  therefore  be  a  matter  of 
universal  interest  and  concern.  Many  will  wish  to  ob- 
tain and  study  with  thoroughness  the  nine  volumes 
which  contain  the  reports  of  the  Commissions  of  the 
Conference,  together  with  the  abstracts  of  the  debates 
upon  these  reports.  A  far  larger  number  of  Christians, 
including  all  who  desire  to  keep  abreast  of  the  most 
vital  developments  in  the  progress  of  the  Christian 
religion,  will  be  eager  to  read  some  adequate  interpre- 
tation of  this  truly  notable  event. 

Those  who  are  responsible  for  the  Edinburgh  Con- 
ference have  been  most  happy  and  fortunate  in  secur- 
ing as  its  special  interpreter  Mr.  W.  H.  T.  Gairdner,  of 
Cairo.  His  intimate  relation  to  the  Student  Christian 
Movement  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  and  to  the 
World's  Student  Christian  Federation  before  he  went 


INTRODUCTION 

to  the  mission  field  prepared  him  in  an  unusual  degree 
to  understand  and  to  ^appreciate  the  various  Christian 
communions,  and  likewise  the  place  of  the  different 
nationalities  and  races  in  the  complex  enterprise  of 
Christian  Missions.  His  subsequent  career  as  a  mis- 
sionary in  the  Levant,  at  a  station  which,  in  a  unique 
sense,  is  on  the  highway  of  missionary  activities  and 
missionary  travel,  has  brought  him  into  contact  with 
the  missionary  problems  of  the  two  great  non-Chris- 
tian continents,  Africa  and  Asia.  His  brilliant  and  in- 
spiring book,  "  The  Reproach  of  Islam,"  is  well  known. 
By  his  catholic  spirit,  by  his  sympathy  with  the  whole 
range  of  the  varied  missionary  life  of  the  Christian 
Church,  by  his  power  of  vision  and  by  his  marked 
ability  to  express  in  an  effective  and  entertaining  man- 
ner what  he  sees  and  feels,  he  has  been  enabled  to  give 
us  a  discerning  and  fascinating  portrayal  of  the  life, 
work,  and  significance  of  the  Conference,  and,  what  is 
much  more  important,  to  cause  us  to  catch  its  spirit 
and  to  receive,  in  a  measure,  some  of  the  wonderful 
impulses  which  so  profoundly  stirred  all  who  had  the 
privilege  of  being  present  during  the  memorable  days 
in  Edinburgh. 

John  R.  Mott. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

Prefatory  Note  on  Behalf  of  the  Committee  .  v 


Author's  Preface       ......         xi 

Introit    ........  3 

CHAPTER  I 
World  History  and  the  World  Mission  ,  .  9 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Preparation  for  the  Conference  ...        17 

CHAPTER  III 
u Edinburgh"   .......        27 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  Opening  Evening  .  .        35 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Delegates  ....,«        47 

CHAPTER  VI 
Aspects  of  Procedure  .  .  .  ♦  .        59 

CHAPTER  VII 

"Carrying  the  Gospel    to    all    the   non-Christian 

World" 68 


EDINBURGH  1910 

CHAPTER  VIII 
"The  Church  on  the  Mission-Field"      .  •  •       93 


PAGB 


CHAPTER   IX 

"Education  in  Relation  to  the  Christianisation  of 

National  Life"   .  .  .  .  .  .114 

CHAPTER  X 

"The  Missionary  Message  in  Relation  to  the  non- 
Christian  Religions"     .  .  .  .  .134 

CHAPTER  XI 

"Missions  and  Governments"         .  .  .  .154 

CHAPTER  XII 
"Co-operation  and  the  Promotion  of  Unity"  .      178 

CHAPTER  XIII 
"The  Preparation  of  Missionaries"       .  .  .      215 

CHAPTER  XIV 
"The  Home  Base  of  Missions"      ....      238 

CHAPTER  XIV.  CONCLUDED 
"The  Home  Base  of  Missions"      ....      259 

Analysis  in  lieu  of  Index  .  .  .  .  .271 

L'Envoi  to  the  Readers  of  "Edinburgh  1910"  .      277 

Official  Messages  from  the  Conference  : 

(1)  To   the    Members   of  the   Church   in  Christian 

Lands       ......       277 

(2)  To  the  Members  of  the  Church  in  non- Christian 

Lands      ......       280 


LIST  OP  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

Frontispiece 


Edinburgh        ......  9 

(Showing  the  Ridge,  with  the  Castle,  the  Two  Assembly 
Halls,  and  the  Cathedral  Church) 

The  Palace       .....  28 

New  College    .......        35 

(Within  which  is  the  United  Free  Church  of  Scotland 
Assembly  Hall,  the  scene  of  the  Conference  ;  with 
the  spire  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  Assembly  Hall 
behind) 

The  Quadrangle        ......       36 

The  Conference  in  Session  ....        56 


Hb  Valorem  Dei  Glotfam 


The  words  on  the  opposite  page  represent  all  that  the 
writer  feels,  and  desires  more  deeply  to  feel,  with  regard 
to  this  book. 

To  have  had  the  writing  of  it  seems  to  him  to  be  the 
greatest  privilege  he  has  ever  had,  or  perhaps  will  ever 
have. 

But  there  is  one  thing  that  remains  to  be  said.  The 
name  of  J.  H.  Oldham — which  recalls  a  friendship 
extending  from  earliest  Oxford  days  at  Trinity  down  to 
"  Edinburgh  1910  " — should,  the  writer  thinks,  have  stood 
on  the  front  page,  as  joint-author  of  a  work  of  which  he 
has  assuredly  been  the  "  onlie  begetter."  But  since 
this  is  not  to  be,  let  his  name  stand  alone  on  this  page. 
From  him  came  initial  inspiration ;  formative  sugges- 
tion ;  and  indispensable  criticism.     Quid  plum  ? 

W.  H.  T.  G. 

6  Wellington  Square, 
Ayr,  August  19 10. 


INTROIT 

In  the  depths  of  endless  space  there  burns  a  star,  one 
among  the  unnumbered  myriads  of  the  host  of  heaven  ; 
a  solitary  star,  without  the  dazzling  company  of  either 
consort,  or  cluster,  or  constellation.  Most  glorious  is  this 
star  ;  yet  its  glory  might  scarcely  so  much  as  be  noted 
by  a  traveller  through  the  void,  by  reason  of  the  far  more 
excellent  glory  of  vast  numbers  of  its  starry  peers.  It 
is,  indeed,  but  a  solitary  star  of  the  tenth  degree,  or 
less  by  far  ;   for  one  star  differeth  from  another  in  glory. 

Round  this  unconsidered  member  of  heaven's  host 
is  whirling  a  family  of  yet  far  lesser  spheres,  dark  save 
for  such  portion  of  the  central  radiance  as  falls  on  each. 
Were  our  traveller  through  space  able  so  to  adjust  his 
perception,  as  even  to  notice  things  so  infinitesimal 
in  the  relative  scale  of  being,  he  would  at  most  take 
note  of  some  three  or  four  of  these  parasites  on  the 
central  glow.  On  these  three  or  four  his  casual  gaze 
might  for  a  moment  fall  : — it  could  hardly  but  miss  four 
others,  far  more  diminutive  still,  spinning  in  the  inner- 
most orbits  round  their  lord,  merest  specks  in  space, 
motes  in  the  sunbeams,  grains  of  the  star-dust  that  floats 
for  ever  in  the  void. 

And  yet  to  the  Third  of  these  Minor  Four  is  clinging 
a  multitude  of  beings  endued  with  life  and  self-motion — 
some  of  them  also  with  thought  and  memory  and  reason  ; 
in  virtue  of  which,  certain  of  these  last  are  saying  that 
their  race  is  akin  to  the  Creator  of  all  the  stars  and  all 
the  constellations  and  the   space   in  which  these  burn 


4  EDINBURGH  1910 

— because  (they  affirm)  it  has  been  created  after  His  like- 
ness and  in  His  image  !  Nevertheless,  the  children  of  that 
race  are  for  the  most  part  at  enmity  with  each  other,  and 
are  injuring  themselves  and  one  another  in  many  grievous 
and  shameful  ways.  And,  therefore,  some  of  them  are 
further  affirming  that  their  race  has  sinned  against  its 
Creator  and  Father,  and  is  by  this  a  fallen  race.  But 
stranger  still  (they  say),  the  Eternal  Word,  through 
Whom  were  all  things  made,  for  their  sakes  once  struck 
His  being  into  bounds,  and  became  one  flesh  with  their 
kind  ;  and  after  walking  with  wondrous  grace  and  holiness 
for  a  while  in  a  certain  corner  of  their  tiny  sphere,  shed 
at  last  His  blood  and  gave  His  life  for  that  whole  world, 
that  it  might  be  redeemed  back  to  the  image  of  Him  who 
created  it;  and  finally  reassumed  the  ineffable  life  which 
He  had  from  all  eternity  :  having  first  commanded  those 
who  from  Him  had  caught  new  life  to  spread  the  news  of 
the  heavenly  deed  from  that  corner  to  every  other  corner 
of  their  world,  until  the  whole  of  it  should  be  full  of  the 
glory  of  God  as  the  waters  cover  its  sea.   .   .   . 


And  what  was  there  that  should  draw  the  Eternal  Word 
out  of  His  eternity  to  tabernacle  on  Number  Three  of  the 
Lesser  Satellites  of  Helios,  that  unconsidered  star  ? 

The  same  question  might  be  with  as  much  justice 
urged  were  that  satellite  not  the  David,  but  the  Eliab  or 
the  Abinadab  of  the  planetary  family  ;  and  were  the  star 
which  gives  it  light  and  heat  not  the  Helios,  but  the 
Sirius  (or  whichever  were  the  absolute  cynosure)  of  all 
the  heavenly  host.  For  the  unique  marvel  were  still  the 
existence  of  spiritual  beings,  personal  as  God,  incarnate 
in  flesh,  capable  of  knowing  themselves,  their  world, 
and  their  Maker  ;  who  are  in  His  likeness,  being  par- 
takers of  the  divine  Reason.     Size  in  this  regard  were 


INTROIT  5 

of  no  account ;  for  Spirit  is  not  to  be  sized.  The 
nonspatial  is  not  to  be  reckoned  in  terms  of  space. 
And,  therefore,  whether  the  tiny  sphere,  that  spins 
and  whirls  there  before  the  gaze  of  the  celestial 
traveller  of  our  fancy,  be  the  One  and  only  one  he  has 
met  or  will  ever  meet  on  whose  stage  the  drama  of  con- 
scious being  is  being  played  ;  or  whether  it  be  but  one  of 
Ninety-and-Nine  other  worlds  that  need  no  repentance  : — 
though  it  were  enormous  as  Arcturus,or  minute  as  a  marble 
peopled  by  conscious  atoms  : — still  would  these  spirit- 
consciousnesses  be  nearest  of  all  to  One  who  is  Spirit  ; 
still  would  the  agony  of  their  spiritual  conflict,  the 
trembling  balance  of  their  spiritual  destiny,  bring  down 
to  their  aid  the  strong  Son  of  God,  from  Whom  came 
all  things,  and  to  Whom,  as  to  its  goal,  the  whole 
creation  moves. 


It  is  not,  in  truth,  unfitting  that  an  account  of  a  great 
Missionary  Conference  which  took  place  in  the  year 
of  grace  191  o  should  begin  with  an  exordium  such  as 
this.  For  the  scientific  enquiry  (so  characteristic  of 
the  age),  the  slow  synthesis  of  which  has  enabled  us  to 
take  a  right  view  of  our  planet  in  space,  is  just  that  which 
enables  us  to  view  it  and  realise  it  in  itself.  If  we  now 
can  see  it  as  one  unit  among  others,  it  is  this  that  enables 
us  to  see  it  also  as  a  unit  in  itself,  a  single  whole.  And  it  is 
because  the  world  has  at  last  come  to  be  realised  as  a 
single  whole  that  the  enterprise  of  carrying  the  Gospel 
to  all  the  world  is  gradually  being  invested  with  a  new 
realisableness  in  the  minds  of  men.  And  it  is  because 
that  enterprise  is  being  thus  invested  with  a  new  realis- 
ableness that  a  World  Missionary  Conference  met  in 
Edinburgh  in  the  year  19 10  with  a  new  sense  of  its  own 
world  character,  a  new  vision  of  the  goal,  and  a  new 


6  EDINBURGH  1910 

desire  to  be  born  again  into  a  knowledge  of  God  com- 
mensurate with  the  superhuman  task. 

In  order  to  see  our  world  as  a  unit,  in  fact,  which  it  is 
imperative  to  do,  we  must  not  stand  mentally  in  Britain 
or  America  or  wherever  we  happen  to  be,  and  view  it 
thence,  with  the  result  that  nearer  things  inevitably  bulk 
more  largely  than  the  remote,  and  that  thus  the  unity  of 
the  whole  is  disturbed.  But  we  must  place  ourselves  by 
the  side  of  that  celestial  traveller  we  have  fancied  .  .  . 
and  behold  !  how  there  swims  into  our  ken  a  gloriously 
yet  mildly  radiant  sphere  !  .  .  .  Through  its  translucent 
envelope  of  atmosphere  its  seas  stand  out  dark  and  clear, 
its  ocean-circled  continents  luminous  and  white.  One 
after  another  the  familiar  shapes  emerge  into  view,  slip- 
ping out  of  night's  dark  shadow  into  the  light  of  the  sun- 
ward side,  white  as  a  lily,  and  as  fair,  against  the  dead 
black  of  space.  There  is  the  world  once  visited  by  the 
Son  of  God  !  There  is  the  world  which  as  one  world 
is  known  to-day  and  must  to-day  be  won  for  its  Maker 
and  its  Redeemer. 


A  vision  of  Earth  !  Known  as  a  unit  in  this  our  day  ; 
every  day  more  and  more  closely  and  organically  knit 
by  the  nerves  of  electric  cable  and  telegraph  wire  ; 
more  richly  fed  by  the  arteries  and  veins  of  railway- 
line  and  steamship  ocean-way  :  one  nation  in  extremest 
Orient  thrilling  at  the  words  of  some  orator  at 
furthest  sun-setting,  almost  as  they  drop  from  his 
lips  ;  so  that  its  inhabitants,  for  all  the  differences  of 
tribe  and  race,  become  daily  more  convinced  of  the  unity 
of  their  humanity : — one  world,  waiting,  surely,  for  who 
shall  carry  to  it  and  place  in  its  empty  hands  one  Faith 
— the  only  thing  that  can  ever  truly  and  fundamentally 
unite  it  or  deeply  and  truly  satisfy  it,  bringing  its  one 


INTROIT  7 

human    race    into    one    Catholic    Church,  through    the 
message  of  the 

"  One  Body  and  One  Spirit, 
One  Lord,  one  Faith,  one  Baptism, 

One  God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is  over  all,  and  through  all, 
and  in  all." 

Such  was  the  vision  which  called  together  the  World 
Missionary  Conference  of  igio  ;  such  was  the  vision 
splendid  which  was  seen  with  ever  more  luminous 
distinctness  as  the  Conference  proceeded  ;  and  such 
is  the  vision  which  any  narrative  or  account  of  the  Con- 
ference must  seek  to  convey  to  the  whole  Church  of 
Jesus  Christ,  since  on  the  whole  Church's  welcome  and 
obedience  to  the  heavenly  vision  depends  its  realisation. 
Thus,  only  thus,  may  be  fulfilled  that  prayer  of  all  the 
ages 

AS   IN   HEAVEN,    SO   ON   EARTH, 
THY    KINGDOM    COME. 

IONA, 

July  1 910. 


CHAPTER  I 

WORLD   HISTORY  AND   THE  WORLD  MISSION 

The  part  that  the  world-wide  enterprise  of  Christian 
missions  is  playing  in  moulding  the  history  of  the  world 
is  already  a  large  one,  and  is  destined  to  increase  more 
and  more. 

This  interlacing  of  world-history  and  the  world- 
mission  is  a  phenomenon  which,  as  was  lately  well 
said  by  one  in  highest  position,  will  increasingly 
compel  the  study  of  the  statesman  and  all  who 
keep  watch  on  the  course  of  the  world.  But  it 
has  also  another  aspect.  If  missions  help  to  make 
history,  world-history  also  reacts  on  the  world-mission, 
deflecting  the  currents  of  its  effort,  giving  definiteness  to 
its  ideals,  causing  modifications  in  its  methods.  Just 
because  it  is  a  mission  that  seeks  to  save  the  world,  it  is 
necessarily  sensitive  to  the  occurrences  of  the  world. 
And  when  there  occurs  one  of  those  rare  events  which, 
like  an  earthquake-shock,  affects  every  political  seismo- 
graph all  over  the  earth,  it  follows,  with  equal  inevitable- 
ness,  that  the  whole  enterprise  of  the  world-mission  feels 
the  thrill,  and  recognises  the  call  to  meet  a  new  emer- 
gency and  a  changed  situation. 

Such  an  event  is  that  which  has  lately  taken  place 
in  the  Far  East,  the  event,  which,  it  might  almost  be  said, 
ushered  in  the  twentieth  century  Up  to  that  time, 
from  the  earliest  days  of  European  commerce  with  the 
Orient,  nay,  except  for  the  parenthesis  of  the  Saracen 


10  EDINBURGH  1910 

and  the  Turk,  from  the  days  of  Alexander  the  Great 
himself,  the  tides  of  empire  and  domination,  of  political 
and  commercial  supremacy,  had  rolled  from  West  to 
East.  India  was  under  a  western  flag  :  China,  with  one- 
fourth  of  the  human  race,  was  (it  seemed)  on  the  verge 
of  dissolution,  and  the  only  question  seemed  to  be  whether 
she  was  to  become  a  far-eastern  Turkey,  the  Sick  Man 
of  Asia,  or  was  to  be  partitioned  among  the  Powers  of 
the  West.  The  Pacific  was  no  less  a  western  ocean  than 
the  Atlantic.  With  America  dominating  its  eastern 
sea-board,  and  Russia  and  the  other  Powers  its  western, 
the  circuit  of  world-influence  seemed  to  be  complete, 
and  western  Power  appeared  to  dominate  and  monopolise 
the  entire  globe. 

And  then,  Port  Arthur  fell,  the  Battle  of  Moukden  was 
fought,  the  Trafalgar  of  the  Korean  Straits  was  decided  ; 
and  the  entire  aspect  of  things  was  changed. 

The  little  Island  Kingdom,  which  alone  had  never 
seemed  quite  to  fit  into  the  former  world-scheme  ; 
which,  in  the  war  with  China  in  1894  and  the  Relief  of 
the  Legations  in  1900,  had  made  Europe  feel  that  there 
was  one  element  in  far-eastern  politics  that  was  proof 
against  absorption  ;  that  little  Island  Kingdom  emerged 
victorious  from  a  decisive  struggle  with  a  western  Power, 
and  in  so  doing  upset  settled  views  based  on  the  records 
of  tens  of  centuries. 

The  tide  of  western  advance  and  domination,  which  had 
seemed  more  like  an  unchangeable  phenomenon  of  nature 
than  a  resultant  of  human  actions  and  states,  was 
checked,  rolled  suddenly  back.  To  the  Oriental  it  even 
seemed  as  if  the  tide  metaphor  might  be  given  its  logical 
extension  : — as  the  turn  of  the  ebb  is  only  the  signal 
for  the  long  irresistible  flow  of  the  returning  flood,  was 
not  that  decisive  event,  in  like  manner,  the  sign  that  the 
tides    of    influence,    of    trade  -  supremacy,    of    political 


WORLD  HISTORY  AND  WORLD  MISSION  11 

ascendency  might  henceforth  be  reversed  and  flow,  as 
before  Marathon  they  had  flowed,  from  East  to  West ! 
Back  from  the  East  westwards  ran  the  electric  thrill 
of  some  such  thoughts  as  these,  creating  national 
longings  and  aspirations  where  formerly  there  were  none, 
and  multiplying  the  intensity  of  those  that  had  already 
existed.  All  talk  about  the  partition  of  China  ceased  with 
astounding  abruptness, — the  world  looked  awestruck 
on,  as  the  sleeping  Colossus  roused  itself,  woke,  and  stood 
upon  its  feet !  .  .  .  Korea,  Manchuria,  Malaysia,  Ceylon, 
each  in  its  own  way,  felt  the  thrill.  A  new  thought, 
a  fresh  aspiration  seemed  to  give  a  sense  of  unity  even 
to  racially  and  religiously-divided  India.  Vague  and 
ignorant  might  be  the  talk  that  went  the  round  in  the 
bazaars  of  the  cities  and  even  in  the  villages  of  India, 
but  it  was  not  the  less  significant.  The  same  talk  might 
have  been  heard  in  Cabul  and  Teheran,  and  in  the  cafes 
of  Constantinople  and  Cairo,  and  God  only  knows  how 
much  further  west  and  south.  It  was  more  than  a  mere 
coincidence  that  the  quinquennium  that  followed  the 
event  saw  the  rapid  development  of  nationalism  in 
Egypt,  and  coups  d'etat  in  Persia  and  in  Turkey.  In 
Europe,  Russia  herself,  the  blind  instrument  of  this  whole 
revolution,  reacted  to  its  impact.  And  the  Ethiopianism 
of  Africa,  whether  Southern  and  Christian,  or  Northern 
and  Mohammedan,  in  all  probability  felt  its  influence 
too.  ...  It  was  evident  that  the  East  had  awaked, 
and  this  because  it  was  not  the  fussy  thunder  of  Western 
legions  that  for  the  hundredth  time  was  annoying  her 
slumber,  but  because  she  was  for  the  first  time  responding 
to  an  awakening  call  of  Nature  from  within  !  The  swirl  of 
the  world-tide,  which  for  five  centuries  had  been  creeping 
up  to  the  Orient  and  encompassing  it  round,  had  now  in 
fact  swept  it  for  good  and  all  into  the  current  of  the 
unified  life  of  all  mankind. 


12  EDINBURGH  1910 

2. 

The  last  great,  united  Missionary  Conference  had 
met  in  1900,  the  year  when  the  regiments  of  "  the 
Powers  "  and  Japan  were  advancing  to  the  relief  of  the 
Legations  in  Pekin.  Was  it  not  palpable  to  those  who 
sat  down  to  plan  the  Edinburgh  World  Missionary 
Conference  of  19 10,  that  the  Church  of  Christ  was  face 
to  face  with  a  new  emergency  and  a  changed  situation  ? 
Humanity  was  awaking  to  self-consciousness  :  it  became 
tenfold  more  urgent  to  say  to  humanity  Ecce  Homo  ! 
The  world  was  realising  that  it  was  a  unity  : — was  that 
unity  to  be  or  not  to  be  in  One  Lord  and  one  Faith  ? 
Were  the  gigantic  forces,  so  contrary  and  so  violent,  now 
liberated  -end  loosened  all  over  the  world,  merely  to  be 
left  to  fight  and  clash  their  terrible  way  to  future  settle- 
ment ?  or  was  the  inconceivable  acridity  of  such  a  con- 
flict to  be  modified  and  mitigated  and  humanised  by 
Orient  joining  Occident  in  the  faith  of  Christ  ?  In  that 
case  it  might  be,  aye,  might  it  not  well  be  !,  that  Japan 
with  her  traditional  non-aggressiveness,  China  with  her 
Confucian  contempt  for  war,  and  India  with  her  tradition 
of  potent  passivity,  might  when  christianised  teach  the 
West  the  supreme  Christian  lesson  it  has  never  been  able 
to  learn,  in  taking  their  mighty  stand  upon  the  principle 
that  henceforth  world-evolution  should  proceed  humanly, 
and  competition  itself,  freed  from  its  nature-tradition 
of  cruelty,  become  just  one  aspect  of  human  co-opera- 
tion !  The  Yellow  Peril  of  Eastern  power  might  thus 
free  the  Yellow  Peril  of  Wrestern  gold  from  its  mysterious 
curse,  and  be  to  the  world  the  source  no  longer  of  peril 
but  of  peace  ! 

3. 

Now  it  was  open  to  those  who  promoted  the  World 
Missionary  Conference  that  met  at  Edinburgh  in  1910 


WORLD  HISTORY  AND  WORLD  MISSION  13 

to  take  one  of  two  courses,  and  to  give  to  the  Conference 
one  of  two  general  aims.  Similar  general  conferences, 
held  previously  in  1854,  under  the  leadership  of  the  great 
missionary  statesman  Duff,  in  i860,  1878,  1888  and  1900, 
gave  precedents  for  following  either  of  these  two  lines — 
either  that  it  should  be  deliberative  and  consultative, 
or  that  it  should  be  mainly  designed  to  bring  the  subject 
of  missions  in  a  striking  way  before  the  public — which 
in  this  case  meant  little  more  than  the  public  in  the 
part  of  the  world  in  which  the  Conference  should  be  held. 
In  the  first  case  it  would  have  the  character  of  a  de- 
liberation, in  the  second  a  demonstration. 

The  considerations  that  have  been  explained  in  the 
preceding  paragraphs  make  it  clear  why  those  men  felt 
that  they  had  no  option  but  to  plan  a  Conference  of 
the  former  type,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  precisely 
the  same  conviction  had  simultaneously  forced  itself 
on  the  minds  of  the  leaders  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  crisis  of  the  enterprise,  caused  by  such  a  radical 
change  in  the  situation  that  faced  the  Church  all  over 
the  world,  demanded  most  of  all,  and  first  of  all,  that 
the  Church  should  "  do  some  fundamental  thinking." 
Thought,  lavishly  and  immediately  given ;  enquiry 
and  study  on  an  unprecedented  scale ;  information 
contributed  from  every  quarter,  thrown  into  the  common 
stock,  carefully  digested,  co-ordinated  and  presented, 
and  then  debated  by  picked  representatives  of  all 
missionary  forces  at  home  and  abroad ;  conclusions 
patiently  and  deliberately  formed  as  a  result  of  these 
proceedings  ;  and  finally  (it  was  hoped) ,  common  action 
taken  in  accordance  with  those  conclusions, — all  this 
is  what  appeared  to  the  leaders  to  be  necessitated  by 
the  unprecedented  situation.  .  .  As  one  of  the  ablest 
of  their  thinkers  put  it,  writing  while  the  preparations 
for  a  Conference  on  the  lines  indicated  were  in  full  swing  : 


14  EDINBURGH  1910 

"  The  very  character  of  the  World  Missionary  Confer- 
ence is  determined  by  these  [world-]  changes.  It  is 
felt  everywhere,  by  all  the  Missionary  Boards,  by  the 
missionaries  themselves,  and  in  a  vague  way  by  private 
members  of  all  denominations.  It  was  impossible 
to  arrange  for  another  Conference  of  the  old  type,  at 
which  an  elaborate  programme  of  addresses  should  be, 
as  it  were,  performed  before  admiring  crowds.  The 
sense  of  a  difference  in  the  atmosphere  was  too  definite, 
too  widespread,  too  significant  to  be  ignored.  In  some 
way  the  result  of  one  hundred  years  of  missionary 
endeavour,  and  the  effect  produced  by  the  penetration 
of  Asia  and  Africa  with  at  least  the  beginnings  of  Western 
civilisation,  have  brought  the  Church  to  a  new  sense 
of  the  vastness  and  complexity  of  the  work  which  now 
lies  before  it.  We  have  climbed  the  foothills  which 
hid  the  supreme  ranges  from  our  sight.  But  now  we  see 
them  there,  and  a  more  or  less  complete  change  on  our 
outfit  and  our  methods  must  be  promptly  arranged  if  the 
real  task  is  to  be  accomplished." 

Was  this  deliberate  choice  of  a  business  Conference, 
the  consequent  drastic  limitation  of  the  numbers  of 
the  representatives  attending  it,  and  the  definite  foregoing 
of  "  performing  before  admiring  crowds,"  to  mean  that 
the  crowds  were  not  to  be  influenced,  the  attention 
of  the  general  public  not  caught,  the  interest  of  the 
Church  masses  not  engaged  or  deepened  ?  The 
Conference  has  come  and  gone  and  already  it  is  evident 
that  these  great  and  important  results  have  by  no  means 
been  sacrificed  by  the  fidelity  to  which  it  limited  itself 
to  its  single  aim.  Like  Solomon  it  sought  wisdom, — 
to  know  ;  and  its  sessions  had  not  closed  before  it  was 
evident  that  the  other  things  which  it  had  not  directly 
sought  had  been  added  unto  it. 

To    know    what  ?       The    work    abroad,     of    course, 


WORLD  HISTORY  AND  WORLD  MISSION  15 

with  its  thousand  facets  ;  the  nature  of  the  supreme 
crisis  that  faces  the  Church ;  the  Church  Catholic 
itself,  to  which  the  whole  enterprise  has  been  committed  ; 
and — God. 

For  those  who  most  deeply  had  realised  the  crisis, 
and  the  paramount  necessity  of  ascertaining  the  facts 
more  clearly,  preparing  more  wisely,  and  working 
with  at  once  greater  lavishness  and  greater  wisdom, 
realised  more  and  more  clearly  that  the  knowledge 
which  needed  most  of  all  to  be  increased  was,  simply, 
the  knowledge  of  God.  For  two  things  came  home  to 
them  with  a  force  amounting  to  revelation  ;  first,  that  the 
task  revealed  by  the  renewed  study  of  the  situation 
demanded  an  experience  of  God  in  Christ  that  the 
Church  does  not  yet  possess  :  and  second,  that  such 
a  deepened  experience  is  possible,  because  there  are 
in  God,  as  revealed  in  Christ,  depths  and  heights  that 
are  knowable  though  still  unknown.  And  it  became 
their  inspiring  hope  that  the  God  who  revealed  His 
power  once  to  the  first  great  Conference,  which,  united 
in  heart  and  united  in  place,  waited  upon  Him,  would 
use  this  one  also  as  His  medium  for  another  such  revela- 
tion to  His  waiting  Church  upon  earth. 

The  spirit  in  which  the  Conference  assembled  can  best 
be  understood  through  the  following  words,  addressed 
by  the  leaders  to  the  delegates,  and  others,  eight  months 
before  it  met : — 

11  In  proportion  as  the  Conference  represents  a  sincere  and 
earnest  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Christian  Church  to  under- 
stand and  perform  its  duty  in  the  world  to-day,  in  a  deep  and 
literal  sense  its  possibilities  are  as  illimitable  as  God  Himself. 
It  is  strange  how  hard  we  find  it  to  hold  to  that  faith  in  the 
goodness  of  God  which  is  implied  in  any  theistic  belief,  and 
which  lay  at  the  heart  of  all  that  Jesus  Christ  taught !  We  do 
not  in  the  depths  of  our  souls  believe  that  God's  desire  for  the 
advancement   of   the   kingdom   of   truth   and   righteousness   is 


16  EDINBURGH  1910 

stronger  and  deeper  than  ours.  Were  we  inwardly  so  persuaded 
we  could  not  doubt  that,  if  in  the  face  of  the  present  opportunity 
our  hearts  fervently  desire  to  witness  yet  more  glorious  days 
than  the  great  past,  in  which  the  good  news  of  Christ  proved 
its  power  to  captivate  the  nations  of  Europe,  something  far 
beyond  the  present  achievement  and  attainment  of  the  Church 
is  also  the  will  of  God.  Can  anything  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
accomplishment  of  that  good  will  but  the  unbelief  of  the 
Church  ?  Is  it  true  that,  as  Christ  taught,  God's  infinite  power 
is  at  the  command  of  those  who  in  childlike  trust  seek  to  do 
that  will  ?  The  issue  to  which  the  consideration  of  the  world 
task  of  Christianity  drives  us  back  is  whether  the  Church  really 
possesses  Chrisfs  thought  about  God,  and,  if  not,  whether  it  can  get  it 
back.  The  only  limits  to  the  new  visions  which  the  approaching 
Conference  may  unfold,  and  the  new  faith  and  devotion  which 
it  may  inspire,  are  those  set  by  our  own  unworthy  and  im- 
poverished conceptions  of  GOD." 

Were  these  high  hopes  fulfilled  by  Edinburgh,  1910  ? 

No  Conference  of  ten  days  ;  no  gathering  of  mere 
representatives  of  the  Church  Militant,  could  do  more 
than  claim,  when  the  Conference  closed,  that  their  eyes 
had  seen  the  wonderful  beginning  of  their  fulfilment. 
That  much  they  did  claim.  But  it  was  just  in  order 
that  that  beginning  might  be  continued,  and  those 
high  hopes  might  altogether  be  realised,  that  the  Com- 
mittee caused  this  book  to  be  written  and  sent  forth, 
if  so  be  that  the  Christian  body  might  thus  be  brought 
into  touch  with  what  its  representatives  experienced 
in  Edinburgh,  1910. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PREPARATION  FOR  THE  CONFERENCE 

The  idea  of  preparing  beforehand  for  a  great  religious 
Conference  by  educating  the  delegates  was  not  an  entirely 
new  one,  when  the  leaders  of  that  of  1910  sat  down  to 
think  out  their  plans  in  the  summer  of  1908.  Recent 
important  Conferences  in  the  Mission  Field,  such  as  the 
Decennial  Missionary  Conference  at  Madras  in  1902 
and  the  Centenary  Missionary  Conference  at  Shanghai 
in  1907,  had  appointed  special  Committees  to  carry  out 
investigations  and  prepare  for  the  work  of  the  Con- 
ference before  it  met :  and  the  Committees  of  the  Shanghai 
Conference  had  printed  and  circulated  to  delegates 
papers  dealing  with  the  subjects  which  had  been  entrusted 
to  them.  Moreover,  only  a  fortnight  before  the  leaders 
met  at  Oxford,  had  closed  the  great  Pan  -  Anglican 
Congress,  at  which  five  thousand  delegates  from  every 
Anglican  diocese  had  met  for  conference  in  London  : 
in  this  case,  a  remarkable  propaedeutic  had  been  carried 
out  for  the  three  years  that  preceded  the  Conference,  in 
the  shape  of  a  series  of  numerous  short  papers,  written 
by  acknowledged  specialists  on  the  many  subjects  which 
were  to  be  taken  up  at  the  Conference,  and  sent  seriatim 
to  all  those  who  desired  to  prepare  their  mind  for  the 
discussions  themselves.  But  in  this  case  there  was  no 
co-ordinating  element, — no  Committee  sat  to  reduce  this 
mass  of  information  and  thought  to  organic  unity  :  and 
herein,  as  will  be  seen,  was  the  advance  made  by  the 

B  l7 


18  EDINBURGH  1910 

leaders  of  Edinburgh,  1910,  in  the  scheme  of  preparation 
they  now  sat  down  to  work  out. 

The  very  character  of  their  aim,  in  truth,  made  such  a 
scheme  inevitable,  for  it  is  palpable  that  if  the  character- 
istic of  the  Conference  was  to  be  study,  and  deliberation 
on  the  basis  of  that  study,  a  lengthy  and  arduous  pre- 
paration was  made  thereby  inevitable ;  for  no  such 
research  could  possibly  be  undertaken  by  the  few  in- 
dividuals who  are  usually  asked  to  "  read  papers  "  on 
these  occasions.  And  even  were  that  not  impossible, 
it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  pour  out,  or  their 
auditors  to  take  in,  the  result  of  their  research,  during  the 
limited  time  which  is  available  at  even  the  lengthiest  of 
conferences. 

It  is  clear,  too,  that  inasmuch  as  the  aim  of  the 
Edinburgh  Conference  was  at  once  more  defined  and 
(really  for  that  very  reason)  more  elaborate  than  that  of 
the  Pan- Anglican,  the  contribution  of  howsoever  valuable 
a  series  of  papers  on  each  topic,  by  the  most  adequate  of 
writers,  would  not  in  itself  be  sufficient.  There  must  also 
be  a  co-ordinating  element,  which  should  both  have  the 
material  collected  on  a  clearly  and  most  carefully  defined 
plan,  and  also  co-ordinate  it  and  reduce  it  to  shape  when 
collected  ;  the  result  to  be  presented  in  the  most  highly 
organic  and  intelligible  form  to  each  delegate  some  weeks 
before  the  first  day  of  the  Conference,  and,  at  the  Con- 
ference itself,  to  be  laid  upon  the  table  and  discussed  in 
as  much  detail  as  possible. 

2. 

Such  in  general  were  the  lines  laid  down  at  the 
International  Committee  which  met  at  Oxford  in  the 
July  of  1908.  It  proved  a  memorable  occasion  :  five 
members  from  the  North  American  Continent,  ten  from 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  CONFERENCE  19 

Great  Britain,  and  three  from  the  Continent  of  Europe 
sat  for  four  days,  from  early  morning  to  late  in  the 
evening, — and  the  discussion  of  business  was  not  always 
interrupted  during  meals.  Complete  harmony  and  a 
sense  of  the  guiding  presence  of  God — which  were  later 
so  noticeable  at  Edinburgh — were  given  as  an  earnest 
to  that  Committee,  and  enabled  it  so  to  work  that  by  the 
end  of  those  four  days,  the  foundations  of  the  Con- 
ference had  been  well  and  truly  laid . 

The  Committee  wisely  decided  not  to  let  the  great 
enquiry  which  it  was  planning  range  aimlessly  over  the 
whole  field,  and  so  miss,  perhaps,  attaining  definite  and 
useful  results  ;  but  to  select  a  limited  number  of  sub- 
jects of  cardinal  importance  and  special  immediate 
urgency,  and  to  direct  a  searching  enquiry  towards  these 
alone.  The  eight  subjects  which  were  thus  isolated  for 
the  purposes  of  this  research  were  as  follows  : — 

I.  Carrying  the  Gospel   to    all  the  non-Christian 

World. 
II.  The  Church  in  the  Mission-field. 

III.  Education  in  relation    to  the  Christianisation 

of  National  Life. 

IV.  The  Missionary  Message  in  relation  to  Non- 

Christian  religions. 
V.  The  Preparation  of  Missionaries. 
VI.  The  Home  Base  of  Missions. 
VII.  Relation  of  Missions  to  Governments. 
VIII.  Co-operation  and  the  Promotion  of  Unity. 

Eight  "  Commissions "  were  then  appointed,  each 
consisting  of  some  twenty  members, — a  hundred  and  sixty 
of  the  ablest  men  and  women  in  America,  Britain  and  the 
Continent.  To  them  was  to  be  entrusted  the  exceedingly 
arduous  and  exacting  work  of  collecting  and  systematis- 
ing  the  information  on  these  eight  subjects.     Now  the 


20  EDINBURGH  1910 

men  who  were  to  be  asked  were  naturally  some  of  the 
busiest  men  in  the  two  continents,  and  the  demand 
which  it  was  proposed  to  make  of  them  was  almost 
audacious  ;  yet  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  Conference 
was  more  remarkable  than  the  response  made  to  the 
invitation  of  the  International  Committee  to  join  those 
Commissions,  though  many  members  of  the  Committee 
hazarded  the  guess  that  if  fifty  per  cent,  of  those  who 
were  to  be  invited  should  accept,  there  would  be  reason 
for  congratulation.  Mark  now  the  event.  Out  of  the 
original  list  of  nearly  one  hundred  and  sixty  names  only 
eleven  declined  the  invitation,  in  practically  every  case 
for  reasons  which  made  acceptance  impossible.  We 
may  thus  gauge  the  importance  of  the  work  which  had 
been  offered  them,  and  the  possibilities  which  these  per- 
sons immediately  discerned  in  the  Conference  and  this 
preliminary  task  alike.  We  shall  also  see  in  a  moment 
what  their  acceptance  of  this  task  was  to  mean  for  these 
devoted  men  and  women. 

3- 

The  names  of  their  Chairmen  show  at  a  glance  the 
quality  of  the  personnel  of  these  Commissions.  For  the 
Carrying  of  the  Gospel  to  all  the  non-Christian 
World  the  name  of  John  R.  Mott  at  once  commends 
itself  as  appropriate  ;  a  man  who  had  twice  been  round 
the  world  and  had  visited  all  the  chief  mission-lands  ;  a 
man  who  combined  to  an  extraordinary  degree  the  power 
of  thinking  in  terms  of  detail  and  of  thinking  in  terms  of 
continents ;  who  believed  in  the  watchword,  "  The 
Evangelisation  of  the  World  in  this  Generation  "  ;  for  he 
belonged  to  that  type  of  which  someone  speaking  of 
Cromwell  (was  it  not  Carlyle  ?)  said,  that  it  is  the  most 

"  dangerous  "   of  all,  the  practical  mystic Over 

the  Commission  of  The  Church  in  the  Mission-field 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  CONFERENCE  21 

presided  Dr  J.  C.  Gibson,  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of 
England  China  mission,  a  man  who  had  been  thirty-three 
years  a  missionary  in  contact  with  the  rapidly-growing 
Church  of  the  most  potentially  powerful  mission-land  in 
the  world  ;  who  had  further  come  into  contact  with  men 
engaged  in  missionary  work  in  every  land,  and  had 
already  in  his  writings  revealed  his  high  gift  as  a 
missionary  statesman  ....  Of  the  Commission  on 
Education  in  relation  to  the  Christianisation  of 
National  Life,  Dr  Gore,  the  first  Bishop  of  Birmingham, 
was  Chairman,  a  Platonist  to  the  core  in  intellectual 
attitude,  steeped  in  that  archetype  of  all  educational 
philosophy,  the  Republic  of  Plato,  in  which  the  greatest 
Athenian  some  four  centuries  before  Christ  discussed 
the  very  theme  that  had  been  propounded  for  this  Com- 
mission in  the  twentieth  century  after ;  how,  by  means 
of  an  education  shaped  by  the  heavenly  ideal,  great 
leaders  of  the  City  of  God  might  be  trained  and  great 
national  and  social  organisms  thus  built  up  informed 
by  the  same  ideal :  a  man  whose  enthusiasm  for  re- 
ligious education  at  home,  and  (as  the  Report  on  his 
Commission  was  to  show)  abroad  also,  was  simply  the 
Christianisation  of  his  Platonism  ;  and  whose  passion 
for  the  Civitas  Dei  of  Catholicity  was  owed,  perhaps, 
as  much  to  the  Politeia  Platonis  as  to  the  Epislola  S.  Pauli 
Apostoli  ad  Ephesios  ...  To  the  chairmanship  of  the 
|  Commission  on  the  The  Missionary  Message  was 
appointed  Professor  D.  S.  Cairns,  of  Aberdeen,  a  man  of 
the  rising  school  of  Christian  thinkers,  whose  writings 
had  proved  him  to  be  sensitive  to  an  unusual  degree 
to  all  currents  of  modern  thought — "  every  wind  of 
doctrine," — which,  however,  do  not  carry  such  thinkers 
about,  but  rather  straighten  and  accelerate  the  course  of 
their  philosophy  towards  Christ,  the  Wisdom  of  God  and 
the  Power  of  God.     The  fittingness  of  such  a  choice 


22  EDINBURGH  1910 

for  the  Commission  is  obvious,  when  we  reflect  that  its 
main  task  was  to  see  and  to  show  how  the  eyes  that  are 
keenest  to  perceive  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man  in 
non-Christian  religions,  will  also  know  the  God-appointed 
entrance  for  their  penetration  by  God's  Incarnate  Word, 
who  is  that  Light,  even  Christ.  ...  It  was  also  well 
done  to  appoint  Dr  Douglas  Mackenzie  to  the  chairman- 
ship of  the  Commission  on  the  Preparation  of 
Missionaries,  a  man  with  a  rare  mind  of  equal  philo- 
sophic breadth  and  reverential  depth  :  bearing  a  historic 
name,  son  of  the  great  missionary  Mackenzie  of  South 
Africa,  he  had  grown  up  not  merely  in  an  atmosphere  of 
missions,  but  in  an  atmosphere  of  missionary  statesman- 
ship, and  in  manhood  had  not  disappointed  the  hopes  to 
which  such  circumstances  gave  rise  :  further,  as  Principal 
of  the  well-known  Hartford  Theological  Seminary,  in 
Connecticut,  he  had  to  apply  his  mind  daily  to  the 
problem  of  the  training  of  leaders  for  "  the  great  employ." 
.  .  .  The  Commission  on  Home  Base  of  Missions  sat 
under  the  presidency  of  Dr  James  L.  Barton  of  Boston, 
a  man  whose  vast  experience  in  all  aspects  of  Mission 
work,  and  whose  important  post  on  the  historic  mission- 
board  of  which  he  is  Secretary,  were  in  themselves  an 
assurance  of  absolute  competence  to  undertake  this 
supremely  important  work.  .  .  .  The  Lord  Balfour  of 
Burleigh  was  one  who  had  already,  like  his  great 
ancestor  in  the  days  of  Old  Mortality,  had  experience  of 
Governments, — with  passages,  too,  that  were  courageous 
like  that  ancestor's,  only  suitably  to  these  politer  days  : 
an  ex-Cabinet  Minister  and  great  public  figure  in  Church 
and  State  alike,  who  more  fitting  to  occupy  the  chair  of 
the  Commission  on  Missions  and  Governments  ?  .  .  . 
And  for  the  Commission  on  Co-operation  and  the  Pro- 
motion of  Unity,  the  Committee  had  at  hand  another 
notable  public  servant,  who,  as  Indian  civilian,  in  a  posi- 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  CONFERENCE  23 

tion  second  only  to  that  of  the  Viceroy,  had  given  a 
lifetime  to  studying,  in  the  sphere  of  Indian  politics  and 
administration,  how  to  instil  and  to  practice  both  the 
principle  of  co-operation  and  that  of  unity  ;  and  who  had 
in  his  high  position  followed  the  example  of  the  greatest 
Anglo-Indians — an  Edwardes  and  a  Lawrence,  and  many 
another — in  showing  himself  under  every  circumstance 
a  Christian  first  of  all.  .  .  . 

These  names  of  the  Chairmen  must  be  taken  as  true 
samples  of  the  personnel  of  the  eight  Commissions  as  a 
whole.  Here  we  see  public  men  of  the  highest  calibre, 
politicians  and  statesmen  in  the  civil,  the  ecclesiastical, 
and  the  missionary  spheres,  giving  not  only  their  names 
but  also  (as  we  shall  see)  lavishly  of  their  time  and  effort 
to  the  enormous  task  of  these  Commissions.  It  was 
only  purposes  of  obvious  convenience  that  determined 
the  fact  that  all  these  eight  belonged  to  the  English- 
speaking  race.  But  among  the  Vice-Chairmen  or  members 
were  men  like  Professor  Warneck  of  Halle  University, 
Professor  Meinhof,  Dr  Julius  Richter,  and  Herr  Ober- 
verwaltungsgerichtsrath  Berner — to  name  only  four. 
There  will  be  more  to  say  about  such  great  names  as  these 
when  the  personnel  of  the  Conference  itself  is  passed  in 
review. 

The  list  of  Commissions  might  be  gone  carefully 
through,  and  name  after  name,  as  outstanding  as  these 
mentioned  for  Christian  character,  and  service,  and 
intellectual  ability,  might  be  easily  mentioned.  But  ex 
capite  Herculem. 

4- 

The  constitution  of  these  Commissions  involved  a 
correspondence  with  missionary  societies  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic  and  of  the  Channel ;    the  drawing  up 


24  EDINBURGH  1910 

of  the  sets  of  questions  which  were  to  be  sent  out  for 
answer  (an  all-important  matter,  if  any  good  return  was 
to  come  from  the  enormous  expenditure  of  these  men's 
time)  involved  a  still  more  prolonged  cross-correspondence 
back  and  forth  ;  the  names  of  the  hundreds  of  corre- 
spondents on  the  mission-field,  to  whom  those  questions 
were  to  be  sent,  had  to  be  obtained  from  Societies  in 
many  different  countries.  The  labour  was  enormous, 
and  there  was  (we  are  told)  "  real  danger  that  the 
questions  would  not  be  issued  soon  enough  to  give 
missionary  workers  time  to  reply."  It  must  have  been 
a  grim  struggle  from  that  July  to  the  new-year  !  .  .  . 
But  the  bulk  of  the  question  papers  were  at  last  ready 
and  sent  out  by  February  1909. 

Yet  this  was  only  the  beginning.  There  were  now 
exactly  sixteen  months  till  the  Conference.  In  that 
time  (1)  the  question  papers  had  to  reach  their  missionary 
addressees,  many  of  them  in  the  remotest  parts  of  the 
world  ;  (2)  an  orthodox  interval  had  to  be  allowed  for, 
during  which  these  papers  were  permitted  peacefully 
to  rest,  unattended  to,  in  the  missionary's  drawer,  or 
reproachfully  eyeing  him  from  a  pigeon-hole  in  his  desk 
(experto  crede)  ;  (3)  in  the  pressure  of  the  missionaries' 
life,  in  sickness  sometimes,  travel  or  great  heat  often, 
at  great  sacrifice  invariably,  these  questions  were 
answered  in  writing, — and  the  reader  may  judge  what  this 
means  in  quantity  and  quality  when  he  learns  that  some 
missionaries  wrote  replies  in  which  they  embodied  all 
the  experience  and  philosophy  of  a  life-time's  work. 
In  all,  upwards  of  one  thousand  papers,  representing 
a  whole  case-full  of  books  in  print,  were  received  by  the 
even  more  unfortunate  Chairmen  of  Commissions ; 
(4)  and  then  the  members  of  each  Commission,  who 
probably  did  not  receive  all  their  material  till  the  late 
autumn    before    the    Conference,    had    to    peruse   the 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  CONFERENCE  25 

sets  of  answers,  varying  from  one  to  five  hundred  in 
number.  .  .  .  The  further  process  of  these  Herculean 
labours  must  be  illustrated  by  a  specimen  account 
(taken  from  the  records  of  the  Commission  on  Missionary 
Education)  printed  in  a  paper  sent  to  the  delegates 
two  months  before  the  Conference  : 

"  The  Executive  Committee  of  the  Commission  met  in 
London  for  five  days  last  November  to  consider  the  prelim- 
inary drafts  prepared  by  different  members  of  the  Commission 
on  the  basis  of  the  large  amount  of  material  that  had  been 
received  from  the  mission  field.  Previous  to  this,  the  Vice- 
Chairman  of  the  Commission  had  come  over  from  America, 
and  held  prolonged  conference  with  individual  members  of  the 
Commission  regarding  its  work.  After  the  meeting  in  London 
a  fresh  revision  was  made  of  the  first  drafts,  and  these  were 
sent  over  to  the  American  members  of  the  Commission,  and 
also  to  a  small  number  of  the  leading  educationalists  in  the 
different  mission  fields.  Criticisms  and  suggestions  have  been 
received  from  the  latter,  and  the  American  members  of  the 
Commission  met  in  New  York  for  four  days,  sitting  for  ten 
hours  each  day.  They  arranged  that  a  large  amount  of 
additional  work  should  be  done  on  the  draft  Reports  by  the 
American  members  of  the  Commission,  and  also  that  Professor 
E.  D.  Burton  of  Chicago,  who  has  just  returned  from  a  two 
years'  tour  round  the  world  for  the  express  purpose  of  studying 
educational  missionary  work,  should  come  over  to  Great 
Britain  to  represent  the  views  of  the  American  members  at  the 
meeting  of  the  Commission  in  London  on  April  5th  and  6th. 
At  this  meeting,  the  Report  will  be  put  into  final  shape  for 
issue  to  the  delegates  of  the  Conference." 

The  strain  must  have  been,  in  fact,  tremendous.  At 
one  time  it  seemed  as  if  the  Reports  of  the  Commissions 
would  not  be  able  to  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the  delegates 
before  the  Conference,  but  in  the  end  each  tryst  was 
kept.  And  though  the  members  of  Commissions  (and 
afterwards  the  delegates  who  had  to  read  the  Reports) 


26  EDINBURGH  1910 

sighed,  often  and  deeply,  for  even  three  months  more 
time,  still  the  Reports  were  sent  out  some  weeks 
before  the  opening  day  on  June  14th.  And  so  in  railway- 
train,  on  P.  and  O.  and  Atlantic  liner,  the  spectacle 
of  the  long  folio  printed  documents  might  have  been 
seen,  in  the  hands  of  a  thousand  delegates,  coming 
from  East,  West,  North  and  South,  as  they  tried  to 
accomplish  the  feat  of  mastering  eight  volumes  of  closest 
thinking,  each  averaging  from  200  to  300  pages  of  ordinary 
print,  in  a  period  that  amounted  to  perhaps  half  a  week 
per  volume. 

Thus  the  World  Missionary  Conference  represented 
work,  plentiful,  hard,  and  honest,  whether  on  the  part 
of  the  Conference  office-staff  (whose  enormous  labours 
have  not  been  even  touched  on  above),  or  the  Committee 
of  the  Conference,  or  the  eight  Chairmen,  or  the  eight 
Commissions,  or  the  twelve  hundred  Delegates. 


And  yet  no  labour  or  preparation  could  possibly  have 
been  commensurate  with  the  profound  issues  which  the 
Reports  had  unfolded,  and  which  the  great  Conference 
now  assembled  to  discuss. 


CHAPTER  III 


EDINBURGH 


At  the  foot  of  an  old  winding  street  that  slopes  steeply 
up  to  a  precipitous  acropolis  of  rock,  there  stands  in 
one  of  the  cities  of  the  North  a  little,  old,  grey  mansion, 
with  the  pathetic  ruin  of  a  little,  old,  grey  chapel  by  its 
side.  Built  on  the  narrow  platform  of  a  little  plain, 
which  is  inserted,  as  it  were,  in  among  a  huddle  of 
grey  hills,1  this  mansion  is  overhung  and  overshadowed 
alike  by  the  steep  slopes  and  sheer  crags  of  those  hills 
on  the  one  side,  and  by  a  city  of  abrupt  alternate  ridges 
and  ravines  on  the  other.  Such  towering  surroundings, 
were  it  ten  times  grander  and  more  spacious  than  it  is, 
would  surely  have  humbled  it.  But,  indeed,  it  is  in 
itself  neither  spacious  nor  grand  : — a  traveller  who  has 
fared  through  the  Continent  and  England,  and  has  in 
mind  the  regal  palaces  and  no  less  regal  baronial  halls 
that  he  has  passed,  might  take  it,  perhaps,  for  the  mansion 
of  some  old  local  barony  little  known  to  fame.   .  .   . 

Strange  little,  old,  grey  Palace  of  the  kings  of  that 
grey,  small  northern  land  !  In  site,  how  fit  a  symbol 
for  a  kingdom  that  is  scarcely  more  than  one  narrow 
midland  plain,  crouching  between  two  masses  of  barren 
mountains  and  moors  :  in  aspect,  how  fit  a  symbol 
for  that  small,  dour  people  whose  entire  realm  numbered, 
and  still  numbers,  scarcely  more  than  a  single  earldom 

1  So  R.  L.  s. 


28  EDINBURGH  1910 

or  duchy  of  some  of  its  great  neighbours  ;  which,  never- 
theless, through  its  sons  has  made  its  life  felt  to  the 
very  ends  of  the  earth  ! 

For  that  little,  grey  mansion  has  for  centuries  seen 
the  courts  of  Kings  and  Queens  ;  it  is  the  Palace  of  the 
Kings  and  Queens  of  Scotland  ;  the  Palace  of  their 
royal  capital  of  Edinburgh  ! 

Fit  symbol,  shall  we  say  then,  in  honourable  in- 
significance and  tremendous  import,  for  a  Council 
now  assembling  in  this  capital  city,  on  the  service  of 
a  Monarch  whose  glory  has  before  now  shown  its  un- 
concern for  all  grandeur  of  exterior,  and  before  now, 
through  the  few  and  the  contemned,  has  wrought  among 
men  a  world-wide  work  !  Is  there  not  another  small 
Royal  City,  with  rocky  acropolis  set  among  the  ravines 
and  grey  limestone  hills  of  far  Judaea  ?  There  that 
Monarch  had  at  Salem  His  tabernacle  and  His  dwelling 
in  Zion.  And  it  was  from  Jerusalem  that,  led  by  twelve 
Galileans,  this  very  enterprise  started,  for  the  business 
of  which  a  Council  is  now  mustering  in  this  city  of 
the  North. 


The  aspect  of  the  city  has  often  recalled  to  the  minds 
of  those  that  visit  it  another  city,  which  also  was  the 
centre  of  the  national  life  of  a  small,  free  people.  As 
the  eye  rests  on  Arthur's  Seat  the  mind  may  well  hark 
back  to  where  Lycabettus  overhangs  and  overshadows 
another  rocky  Acropolis.  From  the  acropolis  of  the 
Castle-rock  you  may  descend  by  the  Propylaea  of  Castle- 
Hill.  The  ridge  of  the  Lawnmarket  and  Canongate 
shall  be  your  Mars'  Hill,  and  the  great  civil  and  ecclesi- 
astical Council-chambers,  which  there  are  wont  to  sit 
in  judgment,  shall  together  do  duty  for  Areopagus' 
venerable  Court.      You  descend  into    a  ravine — let  it 


EDINBURGH  29 

be  the  Agora  !  Again  you  ascend  the  Carton's  opposite 
slope — it  is  the  Pnyx  !  .  .  .  From  her  heights  Athens, 
too,  looked,  over  her  Piraeus  port,  to  the  deep-violet 
line  of  sea  that  crowned  her  Attica.  That  sea,  once, 
to  Athens  vainly  but  gloriously  dreaming,  appeared 
but  a  highway  on  which  her  triremes  might  carry  her 
to  world-empire  and  glory  beyond  all  dreams.  She 
knew  not  that  the  sway  which  her  city  was  destined  to 
establish  over  the  world  for  ever  was  not  to  come  with 
observation  ;  for  it  was  not  her  triremes  that  were  to 
win  it  for  her,  but  the  power  of  the  spirit  of  her  living 
thought.  .  .  .  The  physical  parallel  between  Athens 
and  Edinburgh  is,  in  truth,  a  guide-book  common-place  ; 
but  it  might  have  suggested  to  the  Delegates  now  ascend- 
ing to  their  Areopagus  on  the  Mound  this  thought, — 
the  same  that  was  the  life-principle  of  one  who  "  stood 
in  the  midst  of  Mars  Hill  "  ;  the  same  for  which  Athens 
stands  and  witnesses ;  the  same  which  makes  little 
Holyrood  a  symbol, — that  neither  by  might  nor  by 
power,  but  by  Spirit,  might  Edinburgh,  1910,  play  an 
incalculable  part  in  establishing  a  yet  more  spiritual 
sway  than  that  of  Athens  among  the  nations  and  peoples 
of  the  world. 


As  those  Delegates  ascend  the  slope  of  the  ridge 
on  which  stand,  in  a  group  together,  a  Cathedral  and 
two  Church  Assembly-Halls,  more  memories  in  this 
city  of  memories  crowd  upon  the  mind.  .  .  .  There 
stands  the  old  Cathedral  Church — in  the  centre  of  the 
ridge,  midway  in  that  narrow  winding  street,  between 
the  palace  at  its  foot  and  the  fortress  at  its  head.  A 
Cathedral  it  is,  by  right  of  history  and  of  fact ;  yet  many  a 
parish-church  in  the  richer  South  is  the  more  imposing :  — 
which   reveals    this   Cathedral  own-sister  to  the  little 


SO  EDINBURGH  1910 

grey  Palace  beneath,  Church  and  State  alike  yielding 
one  identical  symbol.  ...  Of  how  many  things  does 
it  speak,  this  little  Cathedral,  the  true  Heart  of  Mid- 
lothian, set  so  firmly  in  the  very  heart  of  the  old  City  ! 
The  Conference,  that  at  the  noon  of  this  day  came  to 
worship  within  its  walls,  will  but  endorse,  through 
its  Commissions  and  its  Reports  and  its  Debates,  the  old 
Cathedral's  silent  testimony  that  at  the  heart  of  all 
civic  or  social  or  national  life,  if  it  is  to  be  great,  must 
be  the  Church  of  God  .  .  . 

Yet  here  rush  discords  in.  For  the  silent  voice  of 
this  Cathedral  Church  tells  further  that  the  Church 
of  God  is  to-day  a  broken  unity.  Alas  !  though  the 
Conference  met  to  pray  there  that  noon,  it  was  not  to 
open  its  proceedings  by  a  solemn  and  official  celebration 
of  the  Communion  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ, 
as  was  the  practice  of  great  oecumenical  gatherings  of  an 
undivided  Church  !  Not  yet  might  those  old  walls  see 
that  sacramental  sight  : — walls  which  in  the  four  cen- 
turies that  have  passed  have  heard  the  dissonances  of 
antagonising  litanies ;  have  seen  the  Missal  of  one 
Church,  and  the  Service-Book  of  a  second,  give 
way,  amid  the  conflict  and  violence  of  consciences 
honestly  moved,  to  the  form  of  worship  maintained 
to-day  by  a  third.  A  broken  unity,  a  broken  unity ! , 
stands  here  confessed.   .   .   . 

Yet  it  is  something  that  on  this  night,  a  bow-shot 
from  the  old  Cathedral,  shall  meet  in  Conference  twelve 
hundred  Christians  called  by  many  names  ;  and  that 
there  shall  be  heard,  in  an  Assembly  Hall  of  that  third 
communion,  the  benediction  of  the  Primate  of  the  second ; 
and  that  in  the  ears  of  the  Conference  shall  be  read, 
from  the  Italian  Bishop  of  the  first,  a  letter  likewise 
invoking  Heaven's  benediction  on  all  gathered  there,  and 
on  the  work  they  have  set  their  hands  to  in  the  name  of 


EDINBURGH  31 

the  Lord.  .  .  .  Peace  then  !  little  Cathedral  Church  : — 
the  restoration  of  that  broken  unity  may  not  even  yet 
have  come  within  the  range  of  men's  waking  vision,  but 
does  it  not,  to-night,  come  to  them  at  least  as  a  true 
dream  ? 

Just  beyond  the  Cathedral  is  a  noble  Church,  with 
spire  to  the  towering  height  of  which  is  added  the  full 
height  of  that  towering  ridge.  It  is  one  of  the  two 
Councils  or  Halls  of  Assembly  which  stand  together 
there.  Assembly  Halls  may  change,  but  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland  is  an  entity  that 
abides  :  so,  as  that  Kirk's  Assembly-Hall  to-day,  this 
Church  on  the  Mound  carries  the  mind  back  to  yet  two 
more  unforgettable  scenes  upon  which  this  city  of 
memories  has  looked.  .  .  . 

It  is  the  year  1796,  just  one  century  and  fourteen 
years  ago.  A  General  Assembly  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland 
is  in  session,  and  the  unwonted  crowding  of  the  building 
shows  that  a  subject  of  supreme  moment,  and  keenly 
divisive  of  opinion,  is  being  debated.  For  the  General 
Assembly  has  been  prayed  by  the  Synod  of  Moray  and 
the  Synod  of  Fife,  formally  to  consider  a  scheme  of 
Foreign  Missions  put  forward  by  the  first  purely  mis- 
sionary society  ever  formed  in  Scotland, — founded  only 
that  year  in  Edinburgh.  Yet  from  the  outset  of  the 
debate  it  is  evident  that  the  overture  is  to  be  rejected. 
Though  ably  supported  by  several  speakers,  it  has 
against  it  the  most  influential  leaders  and  notables 
of  that  Assembly.  One  of  them  has  arisen,  and  has 
delivered  a  long,  most  carefully  prepared  oration,  in 
which  argument  is  piled  on  argument  to  defeat  the 
motion,  because  the  speaker  "  cannot  otherwise  consider 
the  enthusiasm  on  this  subject  than  as  the  effect  of 
sanguine  and  illusive  views,  the  more  dangerous  because 


32  EDINBURGH  1910 

the  object  is  plausible."  He  ceases  speaking  and.  sits 
down.  And  then  a  venerable  figure  rises,  a  man  who 
on  the  most  ordinary  occasion  is  wont  to  rivet  his 
hearers'  attention,  so  deeply  from  heart  and  living 
conviction  comes  his  rough  eloquence  : — how  much  more 
to-day,  then,  when  he  is  fighting  a  losing  battle  for 
what  nevertheless  he  knows  can  never  be  a  losing  cause  ! 
On  that  day  it  is  given  him  to  utter  five  rugged  words, 
which  annihilate  the  flowing  periods  of  the  former 
speaker :  not  one  who  heard  them  will  ever  forget 
them  ;  indeed  they  will  never  be  forgotten.  Pointing 
to  the  great  Bible  on  the  table  in  front  of  the  Moderator 
of  that  Assembly,  he  simply  says, 

"  Moderator !  rax  me  that  Bible!  "... 

The  scene  vanishes  ;  and  it  is  again  an  Assembly  Hall 
in  this  old  City.  The  sacred  volume  still  lies  in  front  of 
the  Moderator's  chair.  It  is  still  "  raxed,"  to  one  and 
another,  who  from  its  pages  seek  to  inspire  or  exhort 
the  vast  concourse  gathered  there ; — but  for  other 
purpose  than  to  convince  them  that  God's  word  gives 
them  the  warrant  to  carry  the  Gospel  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  For  it  is  even  from  thence  that  these  people  have 
come  !  They  have  come  from  thence  to  declare  how  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth  has  reached  the  line  of  that  Gospel ! 
.  .  .  Who  are  these  sitting  among  them,  aye,  among  the 
leaders  of  them, — Indians  and  Africans,  and  Chinese,  and 
Koreans  and  Japanese  ?  These  are  they  who  have  come 
to  give  one  final  endorsement  to  the  truth  of  Erskine's 
grand  old  protest,  and  to  point  forward,  also, — to  what  ? 


Is  this  the  last  of  the  symbolic  memories  that  come  to 
this  Conference  from  Edinburgh's  past  ?  There  is  yet 
one  more  ;  and  it,  too,  has  to  do  with  these  two  Halls 
of    Assembly  upon  that  fateful  ridge.  .  .  .  Where  the 


EDINBURGH  33 

narrow  ridge  is  narrowest,  why  do  these  two  stand  so 
stiffly,  almost  back  to  back  ?  Once  more  the  past 
calls  us,  back  to  the  year  1843,  midway  between  that 
other  scene  of  yesterday,  and  this  of  to-day.  Again 
an  Assembly  Hall  is  in  session,  and  again  it  is 
crowded  from  the  floor  to  the  roof.  Once  more  excite- 
ment is  strong  to  its  intensest  pitch  ;  for  another  supreme 
decision  is  this  day  to  be  made.  The  Moderator  rises  ; 
with  deep  earnestness  he  offers  prayer  ;  then  he  reads 
from  a  document  which  he  holds  in  his  hand  in  a  slow, 
emphatic  manner.  It  is  a  protest.  It  reaches  its 
impressive  close  ;  he  flings  it  down  on  to  the  table  before 
him,  and  then — solemnly  departs.  A  great  company 
of  adherents  rise,  and  leaving  the  rest  sitting  there, 
follow  him  through  the  streets  of  the  grey  city,  three  in 
depth,  for  a  full  quarter  of  a  mile.  And  in  a  separate 
place  they  constitute  another  Assembly,  while  the  old 
one  sits  on  as  before.  And  thus  it  is  until  this  day.  .  .  . 
But  to-night,  in  the  new  Assembly  Hall  which  thus 
arose  after  that  Disruption,  a  Missionary  Conference,  a 
general  assembly  indeed  ! ,  is  to  meet ;  and,  in  the 
Moderator's  chair  will  sit,  as  President  of  the  Conference, 
one  of  the  distinguished  sons  of  the  very  Kirk  from  whose 
Assembly  that  disruption  broke  forth  !  And  night  after 
night  both  Halls  are  to  be  thronged  by  a  great  company 
of  folk,  without  distinction  as  to  either  nation  or  com- 
munion, for  the  one  purpose  of  them  all  now  is  to  carry 
the  Gospel  of  their  Master  to  the  whole  world,  obedient 
to  His  command.  .  .  . 


So  the  Delegates  pass  up  the  slope  on  this  evening  of 
the  14th  June  1910,  towards  their  council-hall  on  that 
historic  ridge.  There,  on  its  sky-line,  dark  against  the 
late,    mellow    radiance    of    the    never-ending    northern 


34  EDINBURGH  1910 

summer  day,  are  the  corona  of  the  old  Cathedral,  the 
spire  and  twin  towers  of  the  two  Assembly-Halls.  .  .  . 
It  may  be  that  they  still  speak  of  a  broken  unity  :  but 
surely,  on  this  perfect  evening,  with  a  changed  accent ! — 
Is  it  to  be  the  work  of  carrying  the  One  Gospel  of  the  One 
Lord  to  this  One  Human  Race  that  is  to  add  to  these 
unities  yet  one  more,  the  unity  of  a  One  Catholic  Church  ? 
So  through  the  aisles  of  that  old  Church  may  one  day 
roll  the  harmony  which  shall  ensue  when  all  the  discords 
that  have  rushed  in  shall  have  been  resolved,  making 
that  harmony  thereby  all  the  more  full  and  sweet. 


Edinburgh  !  city  of  memories,  of  symbolic  pictures 
from  the  past !  .  .  .  Is  "  Edinburgh  "  to  be  also,  one 
wonders,  a  city  of  hopes,  the  symbol  and  indicator  of 
something  that  is  yet  to  be  ? 


w 


u, 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   OPENING  EVENING 

The  Assembly  Hall  of  the  United  Free  Church  of  Scot- 
land, in  which  the  delegates  now  took  their  seats  on  that 
midsummer  evening,  is  attached  to  the  buildings  of  New 
College,  the  theological  seminary  founded  by  the  great 
Chalmers,  for  the  training  of  candidates  for  the  Free 
Church  ministry.  The  whole  edifice  is  built  on  the  steep 
flank  of  the  ridge  that  has  already  been  described  ;  so 
that  the  slope  (called  the  Mound),  by  which  the  front  gate 
is  approached,  is  really  continued  within  the  buildings 
themselves,  the  front  quadrangle  being  on  a  lower  level 
than  the  whole  of  the  premises  fronting  it,  to  which  there 
leads  a  long  steep  flight  of  steps.  The  buildings  that 
surround  the  quadrangle  are  consequently  of  great 
height,  and  darkly  overshadow  the  small  sombre  court 
itself.  Yet,  high  as  are  these  overshadowing  buildings, 
even  over  them  appears  the  tall  spire  of  the  Established 
Kirk  Assembly  Hall  rearing  itself  into  the  sky.  Built, 
as  we  have  seen,  at  the  very  top  of  the  ridge,  it  looks 
down  into  the  well  of  the  quadrangle  far  beneath  from 
what  seems  a  simply  towering  height.  In  that  quadrangle 
stands  the  silent  efhgy  of  John  Knox.  From  the 
Assembly  Halls  to  St  Giles,  from  St  Giles  to  Holyrood, 
this  name  dominates  all, — nay,  the  whole  city  itself, — 
as  that  spire  towers  over  all  from  the  apex  of  the  ridge. 
And  the  delegates  entering  by  this  deep,  stone  court, 

35 


36  EDINBURGH  1910 

passed  daily  where  that  statue  stood  motionless,  with 
rigid  pointing  arm  and  hand. 


2. 

Ascending  now  the  flight  of  steps  that  fronted  them, 
they  passed  through  a  vestibule,  and  then,  by  a  series 
of  corridors  running  round  the  Assembly  Hall,  into  that 
Hall  itself. 

The  council-hall  was  a  striking  one, — broad  and 
spacious  rather  than  lofty.  The  galleries,  which  ran 
round  all  four  sides  of  it,  brought  the  topmost  row  of 
their  steep  banks  of  benches  almost  level  with  the  roof,  by 
skylights  in  which  the  hall  was  almost  entirely  lighted. 
Thus  it  was  no  mere  phrase  that  night  to  say  that  the 
House  was  crowded  "  from  floor  to  ceiling," — from  the 
thronged  benches  of  the  floor,  to  the  densely  occupied 
galleries  with  their  "  overbellying  crowds."  The  seats 
on  the  floor  of  the  House  were  in  blocks,  oblong  not 
wedge-shaped,  slanting  inwards  towards  the  long  rect- 
angular space  in  the  centre,  which  was  filled  with  the 
cross-benches,  a  square  inclosure,  and  finally  the  Pre- 
sident's chair.  The  Chair  thus  faced  the  entire  audience, 
with  other  chairs  of  honour  to  right  and  left,  on  a  raised 
dais.  At  a  lower  level  was  the  square  enclosure  with  a 
table  in  the  midst,  round  which  sat  the  Business  Com- 
mittee of  the  Conference,  with  the  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  in  their  midst  just  below  the  President,  and 
on  his  right  the  General  Secretary  of  the  Conference. 
Behind  them  were  the  cross-benches  for  the  reporters. 
The  Continental  delegates  took  their  seats  in  the  front 
benches  to  right  and  left  of  the  reporters.  The  rest  of 
the  delegates  filled  the  remaining  benches  indiscrimin- 
ately, to  the  very  farthest  seats  beneath  the  galleries. 


THE    QUADRANGLE 


THE  OPENING  EVENING  37 


When  the  appointed  minute  had  arrived,  the  Lord 
Balfour  of  Burleigh,  President  of  the  Conference,  entered 
the  hall,  accompanied  by  the  speakers  of  the  evening. 
The  President  took  his  seat  in  the  Moderator's  chair, 
with  the  speakers  in  the  seats  of  honour  to  right  and  left. 
The  moment  of  inauguration  was  when  the  President 
called  upon  the  venerable  Principal  of  the  New  College 
to  offer  prayer  to  God. 

In  reading  the  accounts  of  great  (Ecumenical  Councils 
of  the  past,  one  is  struck  by  that  invariable  feature  of 
their  solemn  inauguration, — the  celebration  of  the 
Eucharistic  Feast  with  which  they  consecrated  their 
whole  proceedings.  In  this  world-conference  meeting 
that  was  not  to  be.  And  the  fact,  borne  in  on  the  soul, 
wounded  and  hurt  it.  (Yet  there  was  hope  in  the  very 
pain,  for  perhaps  only  such  wounds  can  lead  to  healing.) 
But  as  far  as  a  human  prayer  could  bring  that  Conference 
into  living  touch  with  the  sacred  past  and  the  Lord,  with 
the  Communion  of  Saints  and  their  King,  so  far  was  the 
Conference  brought  by  the  prayer  at  that  time  offered. 
Deeply  experienced  in  solitary  prayer  ;  steeped  in  the 
liturgies,  the  private  devotions,  the  spiritual  language  and 
literature  of  Fathers,  Doctors,  Mystics,  and  Saints  in  all 
ages,  that  white-haired  Principal's  prayer  rilled  the  place 
with  the  aroma  of  the  devotion  of  ages.  .  .  .  The  Com- 
munion of  Saints,  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect, 
the  general  assembly  of  the  first-born,  encompass 
the  Conference  like  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  as  the  leader 
solemnly  commemorates  and  gives  thanks  for  noble 
men  from  many  an  age,  and  many  a  communion.  "  He 
who  holds  the  Book  with  the  Seven  Seals  is  opening  one  of 
the  Seals  at  this  very  hour  !  ",  he  cries.  And  then  comes 
the  thanksgiving  for  "  Origen  and  Athanasius  and  the 


38  EDINBURGH  1910 

great  Alexandrians  that  gave  us  our  Creed  "  ;  Augustine 
and  a  Kempis  and  Brother  Lawrence  ;  (.  .  .  and  there  was 
intercession  here  for  "  the  Greek  and  Roman  churches  that 
they  might  have  grace,  grace  of  reformation  and  revival, 
such  as  we  ourselves  need  ")  ;  .  .  .  Bishop  Andre wes, 
"  who  taught  us  how  to  pray,"  and  Jeremy  Taylor  and 
William  Law ;  John  Knox  and  Samuel  Rutherford, 
Bunyan  and  "Baxter  with  his  'Saint's  Rest'";  and 
Spurgeon  and  Maclaren  and  M'Cheyne  and  Chalmers  of 
New  Guinea,  Duff  and  David  Livingstone.  ...  It  was 
a  eucharist  of  thanksgiving,  a  solemn  commemoration, 
which  brought  the  Conference  very  near  the  Head  and 
His  universal  church  ;  bringing  nearer  too,  it  may  surely 
be,  that  united  Eucharist  and  Communion  which  shall 
one  day  be. 

4- 

The  Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh  then  rose.  And  just  as 
Dr  Whyte's  prayer  had  been  a  reminder  of  the  first  act 
of  the  old  Councils,  so  the  President's  very  first  sentence 
recalled  another  of  their  historic  features.  In  those  old 
days  the  solemn  opening  of  a  Council  by  the  Emperor  and 
the  stately  charge  that  he  gave  to  it  were  essential  and 
memorable  features.  And,  for  all  that  times  are  changed 
beyond  all  recognition,  the  Conference  now  assembled  in 
the  royal  capital  of  a  Christian  king  was  not  to  lack 
a  right  royal  and  Christian  message.  "  Gentlemen," 
said  the  President,  "  I  am  charged  with  a  message  from 
his  Majesty  the  King,  which  you  will  doubtless  receive 
with  due  honour  and  respect." 

The  Conference  at  the  word  rose  and  stood. 

"  The  King  commands  me  to  convey  to  you  the  expression 
of  his  deep  interest  in  the  World  Missionary  Conference 
to  be  held  in  Edinburgh  at  this  time. 


THE  OPENING  EVENING  39 

"  His  Majesty  views  with  gratification  the  fraternal 
co-operation  of  so  many  Churches  and  Societies  in  the 
United  States,  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  in  the 
British  Empire,  in  the  work  of  disseminating  the  know- 
ledge and  principles  of  Christianity  by  Christian  methods 
throughout  the  world. 

"  The  King  appreciates  the  supreme  importance  of 
this  work  in  its  bearing  upon  the  cementing  of  international 
friendship,  the  cause  of  peace,  and  the  well-being  of 
mankind. 

"  His  Majesty  welcomes  the  prospect  of  this  great  re- 
presentative gathering  being  held  in  one  of  the  capitals 
of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  expresses  his  earnest  hope 
that  the  deliberations  of  the  Conference  may  be  guided 
by  divine  wisdom,  and  may  be  a  means  of  promoting 
unity  among  Christians,  and  of  furthering  the  high  and 
beneficent  ends  which  the  Conference  has  in  view." 


To  the  ears  of  the  Conference  the  message  rang 
with  a  true  personal  interest.1  "  Defensor  fidei  "  is  no 
doubt  a  very  formal  title — necessarily  so  in  these  changed 
times  :  but  the  spirit  of  it  surely  permeated  the  stately 
simplicity  of  these  gracious  words.  With  a  single  accord 
and  impulse  the  whole  Conference,  monarchists  and 
republicans  alike,  sang  God  save  the  King. 

That  message  was  the  climax  of  the  honourable  and 
distinguished  greetings  given  to  the  Conference  : — the 
Municipality  had  welcomed  it  the  evening  before  ; 
the  National  Church  had  opened  its  Cathedral  to  it 
at  noon  ;    the  University  of  Edinburgh  had  that  day 

1  There  were  three  other  messages  of  unusual  significance  and  im- 
portance which  at  different  times  were  read  to  the  Conference.  Two 
are  given  in  the  Appendix  to  this  chapter.  The  third  will  be  noticed 
later  on. 


40  EDINBURGH  1910 

for  the  first  time  in  its  history  honoured  the  leaders 
of  a  Missionary  Conference  with  its  highest  honorary 
degrees  ;  and  now  the  Prince  of  the  Realm  in  which 
it  met  had  greeted  it.  A  Conference  so  saluted  would 
have  indeed  been  unworthy  had  anything  but  a  noble 
dignity  characterised  all  its  proceedings. 

But  before  the  end  of  that  first  evening  there  was 
not  one  that  was  not  deeply  conscious  that  the  Conference 
had  been  welcomed  at  its  outset  by  a  Greater  and 
Mightier,  Who  is  above  all  and  over  all. 

6. 

Three  speakers  spoke  at  this  opening  meeting,  the 
Lord  President ;  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ;  and — 
if  true  oratory  means  beauty  and  truth  in  both  thought 
and  utterance — then  a  prince  of  spiritual  orators, 
Robert  Elliot  Speer. 

The  first,  we  have  already  seen,  is  a  great  public 
servant,  sometime  an  honoured  Cabinet  Minister, 
a  notable  Churchman.  In  this  his  first  address,  as 
in  his  last,  the  ring  of  personal  conviction  and 
passionate  interest  were  unmistakable,  when  he  spoke 
of  what  the  Conference  stood  for  and  what  it  hoped  to 
do  ;  the  variety  of  the  problems  it  had  met  to  sift  and 
discuss  with  scientific  regard  to  the  facts  ;  the  greatness 
of  the  opportunity  in  the  awakening  world  of  to-day.  .  . 
And  time  and  again  he  struck  the  note  of  unity  ;  "  the 
thought  not  without  its  grandeur  that  a  unity  begun 
in  the  mission  field  may  extend  its  influence,  and  react 
upon  us  at  home  and  throughout  the  old  civilisations  "  ; 
the  things  which  make  sure  common  ground,  "  the 
fatherhood  of  God,  the  love  of  the  Son,  the  power  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  the  purity  of  the  Christian  life,  the 
splendour  of    the  Christian    Hope."     Such    an   address 


THE  OPENING  EVENING  41 

struck  a  noble  note,  and   those  that  followed  carried 
the  assemblage  yet  higher.1 


No  more  powerful  figure  had  the  American  foreign- 
mission  movement  produced  than  the  man  who  had 
been  chosen  to  speak  that  evening.  Tall  of  stature, 
and  beautiful  of  countenance,  with  a  powerful  voice, 
which  for  all  its  rasping  resonance  was  capable  of  the 
tenderest  of  cadences  ;  with  a  facility  and  golden  beauty 
of  expression  that  was  but  the  obverse  of  the  great 
beauty  and  spirituality  of  thought ;  Johannine  at  once 
for  fire  and  for  tenderness  : — no  wonder  if  it  had  been 
claimed  for  Robert  Speer  that  he  was  among  the  fore- 
most of  America's  orators.  The  word  has  been  soiled 
by  ignoble  use  ;  but  there  has  at  all  times  been  an 
eloquence  which,  because  wholly  used  for  God,  simply 
seems  to  be  a  true  spiritual  charism.  Such  was  that 
of  the  man  who  had  that  night  a  subject  intimately 
dear  to  himself,  wholly  appropriate  to  this  inauguration, 
the  Leadership  of  Christ.  He  began  as  always  with  the 
personal  note,  the  cherished  reality  of  Christ  to  the 
soul  .  .  .  the  reality  of  His  personal  leadership ; 
how  simple  fidelity  to  this  leads  on,  invariably  and  in- 
evitably, to  the  enterprise  of  giving  Him  to  all  the  world. 
"  No  one  can  follow  Him  without  following  Him  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  !  "  he  cried.  And  then, — the 
Church  has  only  imperfectly  realised  this  leadership, 
or  it  would  have  counted  and  found  possible  the  things 
that  are  impossibilities  to  her  to-day  ;  overcome  the 
difficulties  with  regard  to  which  this  Conference,  at 
least,  is  under  no  delusions.  And  then  the  close  led 
back  to  the  beloved  figure  of  the  Christ  : — "  We  know 

1  In  the  following  account  the  order  in  which  they  actually  spoke  is 
reversed. 


42  EDINBURGH  1910 

how  great  the  undertaking  is  ;  but  we  know  also  that 
centuries  ago  One  sat  down  before  that  undertaking 
undismayed,  though  failure  in  the  eyes  of  the  world 
was  written  clear  and  full  across  the  face  of  it,  and 
saw  far  away  through  the  centuries  the  result  that  could 
not  be  for  ever  stayed  :  " — let  only  (pled  the  eloquent 
voice)  the  barrier  of  unfaith  that  keeps  us  and  that 
Leader's  almightiness  apart,  be  removed,  and  "  that 
living  faith  will  make  it  possible  for  Him  to  make  use 
of  us  for  the  immediate  conquest  of  the  world." 

8. 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  words  like  these  were 
but  rhetoric  and  as  rhetoric  must  be  discounted,  it  is  most 
important  to  observe  that  the  same  startling  proposition, 
with  which  the  address  of  the  orator  closed,  fell  also 
that  evening  from  the  lips  of  one  whom  neither  friend 
nor  opponent  would  credit  with  rhetoric  ;  who  in  fact 
was  not,  first  and  foremost,  an  orator  at  all.  Statesman, 
courtier,  churchman, — the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
had  been  called,  and  indeed  was  supremely,  all  of  these  ; 
Scottish  by  birth  and  temperament,  with  the  shrewd- 
ness of  the  Scot  and  his  practical  grasp  of  affairs ; 
Archbishop  not  only  by  position,  but  also  one  might  say 
by  training  ;  spiritual  guide  to  kings  and  queens  ;  large 
of  judgment,  broad  of  toleration,  and  politic — yet  no 
trimmer — in  matters  of  hottest  controversy ;  forced 
by  the  very  terribleness  of  his  responsibilities  to  an  ever- 
deepening  spiritual  experience  ;  such  was  the  man  to 
whom  it  was  given  that  night  to  speak  one  sentence 
which  seemed  to  be  suddenly  touched  with  the  prophetic 
fire  ;  a  sentence  by  which  what  might  have  seemed  the 
rhetorical  paradox  of  the  last  speaker's  peroration 
was  solemnly  endorsed  ! 


THE  OPENING  EVENING  43 

It  must  suffice  simply  to  allude  to  the  first  part  of 
that  address,  every  word  of  it  striking  enough.  It  was 
marked  by  gracious  humility  and  brotherliness  unfeigned. 
It  revealed  unmistakable  and  even  passionate  conviction 
that  evangelisation  is  the  paramount  duty  of  the 
Church.  There  were  many  orators  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic  who  would  have  impressed  no  one  by 
calling  that  Conference  one  "  which  if  men  be  weighed 
rather  than  counted  has,  I  suppose,  no  parallel  in  the 
history  of  this  or  of  other  lands  "  :  but  coming  from 
a  Scots  statesman-ecclesiastic,  with  a  merited  reputation 
for  sobriety  of  thought  and  word,  it  impressed.  But 
it  was  the  closing  sentence  that  gave  the  unforgettable 
thrill  :  he  was  affirming  with  tremendous  emphasis  that 
"  the  place  of  missions  in  the  life  of  the  Church  must  be 
the  central  place,  and  none  other  :  that  is  what  matters  "  ; 
—  and  thus  concluded : — "  Secure  for  that  thought 
its  true  place,  in  our  plans,  our  policy,  our  prayers  ; 
and  then — why  then,  the  issue  is  His,  not  ours.  But 
it  may  well  be  that,  if  that  come  true,  there  be  some  stand- 
ing HERE  TO-NIGHT  WHO  SHALL  NOT  TASTE  OF  DEATH 
TILL  THEY  SEE  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  COME  WITH 
POWER  " —  ! 


It  was  the  sudden  appropriation  to  the  present  of 
perhaps  the  most  mysterious  and  the  most  thrilling 
of  all  the  sayings  of  Christ,  with  a  boldness  that  only 
momentary  inspiration,  stinging  "  with  the  splendour 
of  a  sudden  thought,"  seemed  sufficient  to  account  for, 
— this  was  the  thing  that  thrilled.  Archbishop  fell 
away  and  was  forgotten ;  for  a  man,  at  long  last, 
is  a  greater  thing  than  an  archbishop.  But  even 
man  appeared  also  to  fall  away  and  be  forgotten, — it 


44  EDINBURGH  1910 

seemed  almost  as  if  the  speaker  himself  stood  before  his 
own  word  as  one  taken  by  surprise.  For  one  supreme 
moment,  it  seemed,  God  had  stood  forth  nakedly 
revealed,  and  had  spoken  in  Him  who  first  spoke  those 
words  and  now  lives  in  the  Divine  glory. 


THE  OPENING  EVENING  45 


APPENDIX  TO  CHAPTER  IV. 

(0 

Message  to  the  Edinburch  Conference  from  the 
Imperial  German  Colonial  Office. 

"  The  German  Colonial  Office  is  following  the  proceedings 
of  this  World  Mission  Conference  with  lively  interest,  and 
desires  that  it  be  crowned  with  blessing  and  success. 

"  The  German  Colonial  Office  recognises  with  satisfaction 
and  gratitude  that  the  endeavours  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel 
are  followed  by  the  blessings  of  civilisation  and  culture  in  all 
countries. 

'  In  this  sense,  too,  the  good  wishes  of  the  Secretary  of 
State  of  the  German  Imperial  Colonial  Office  accompany  your 
proceedings." 

« 

Letter  to  the  President  of  the  Edinburgh  Conference 

from  Theodore  Roosevelt  sometime  President  of 

the  United  States  of  America. 

"  My  Dear  Sir — It  is  a  matter  of  real  and  profound  regret 
to  me  that  I  am  imperatively  called  back  to  America,  so  that  I 
am  unable  to  be  present  in  person  at  the  World  Missionary 
Conference.  I  regret  it  the  more  as,  if  I  had  been  able  to  be 
present,  it  would  have  been  as  a  delegate  from  the  Dutch 
Reformed  Church  of  America,  to  which  I  belong. 

"  Nothing  like  your  proposed  Conference  has  ever  hitherto 
taken  place.  From  many  nations,  and  from  many  churches,  your 
delegates  gather  on  this  great  occasion  to  initiate  a  movement 
which  I  not  only  hope  but  believe  will  be  fraught  with  far- 
reaching  good.  For  the  first  time  in  four  centuries  Christians 
of  every  name  come  together  without  renouncing  their  several 
convictions,  or  sacrificing  their  several  principles,  to  confer  as 
to  what  common  action  may  be  taken  in  order  to  make  their 
common  Christianity  not  only  known  to,  but  a  vital  force 
among  the  two-thirds  of  the  human  race  to  whom  as  yet  it  is 
hardly  even  a  name.     Surely  every  man  imbued,  as  every  man 


46  EDINBURGH  1910 

should  be,  with  the  ethical  teachings  of  Christianity,  must 
rejoice  in  such  an  effort  to  combine  the  strength  of  all  the 
Churches  in  the  endeavour  to  Christianise  humanity,  and  to 
Christianise  it  not  merely  in  name  but  in  very  fact. 

"  Your  Conference  represents  the  practical  effort  to  apply  the 
teachings  of  the  Gospel  to  what  the  Epistle  of  Jude  calls  '  The 
Common  Salvation.'  An  infinite  amount  of  work  remains  to 
be  done  before  we  can  regard  ourselves  as  being  even  within 
measurable  distance  of  the  desired  goal ;  an  infinite  amount  at 
home  in  the  dark  places  which  too  often  closely  surround  the 
brightest  centres  of  life,  an  infinite  amount  abroad  in  those 
dark  places  of  the  earth  where  blackness  is  as  yet  unrelieved  by 
any  light. 

"  When  such  is  the  high  purpose  to  which  you  have  dedicated 
yourselves  it  is  eminently  fitting  that  your  invitation  should 
have  gone  to  all  Christian  Churches  in  all  lands.  I  am  sure  that 
there  will  be  a  general  and  I  hope  a  universal  response.  In 
missionary  work,  above  all  other  kinds  of  Christian  work,  it  is 
imperative  to  remember  that  a  divided  Christendom  can  only 
imperfectly  bear  witness  to  the  essential  unity  of  Christianity. 
I  believe  that  without  compromise  of  belief,  without  loss  of 
the  positive  good  contained  in  the  recognition  of  diversities  of 
gifts  and  differences  of  the  administration,  Christian  Churches 
may  yet  find  a  way  to  cordial  co-operation  and  friendship  as 
regards  the  great  underlying  essentials  upon  which  as  a  founda- 
tion all  Christian  Churches  are  built.  This  is  one  of  the 
lessons  which  has  been  particularly  impressed  upon  me  by 
what  I  have  seen  of  Christian  work  in  Africa,  both  in  heathen 
and  Mohammedan  lands.  I  believe  that  unity  in  a  spirit  of 
Christian  brotherhood  for  such  broad  Christian  work  will  tend, 
not  to  do  away  with  differences  of  doctrine,  but  to  prevent  us 
from  laying  too  much  stress  on  the  differences  of  doctrine.  It 
is  written  in  the  Scriptures  that  '  He  that  doeth  My  will  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine ' ;  but  the  reverse  of  this  proposition 
cannot  be  found  in  Holy  Writ.  Emphasis  is  to  be  put  upon 
*  doing  the  will ' ;  if  only  we  can  make  up  our  minds  to 
work  together  with  earnest  sincerity  for  the  common  good  we 
shall  find  that  doctrinal  differences  in  no  way  interfere  with 
our  doing  this  work. — Wishing  you  all  success,  I  am,  very 
sincerely  yours, — Theodore  Roosevelt." 


CHAPTER  V 


THE   DELEGATES 


The  next  morning  dawned  bright  and  clear. 

While  the  delegates  are  making  towards  their  Hall 
of  Council,  rejoicing  in  the  delicious  Scottish  mid- 
summer, it  is  fitting  to  ask  who  they  are ;  what  com- 
munities they  represent,  what  races,  what  nationalities  ; 
and  from  what  lands  they  have  travelled  to  this  place. 
If  to  say  something  about  the  eight  Chairmen  only 
was  as  much  as  the  limitation  of  space  permitted, 
what  is  to  be  said  about  the  twelve  hundred  delegates  ? 
Yet  an  impression  of  the  historic  gathering  would  be 
utterly  incomplete  were  nothing  to  be  set  down. 

i. 

These  men  and  women  have  come  from  literally  all 
over  the  world.  This  Conference,  though  held  in  Britain, 
in  Scotland,  in  Edinburgh,  was  in  no  sense  a  British, 
Scotch,  or  Edinburgh  Conference  —  it  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say  that  its  official  composition  would  have 
been  substantially  unchanged  had  it  been  held  in  London, 
New  York,  Berlin,  or  Shanghai ;  for  in  each  case  the 
principle  which  determined  the  choice  and  appointment 
of  delegates  would  have  been  the  same,  and  thus  the 
personnel  of  the  delegations  would  have  been  practically 
the  same.  That  principle  was  a  rigidly  strict  one  : — 
all  Mission  Boards  and  Societies  in  all  countries  were 

47 


48  EDINBURGH  1910 

empowered  to  send  a  number  of  delegates  that  was  in 
exact  proportion  to  their  income,  and  the  proportion 
was  so  calculated  as  to  limit  the  total  delegation  to  some- 
thing over  one  thousand.  It  is  obvious  from  this  that 
a  Society  whose  offices  were  in  Edinburgh  itself  had  not 
the  smallest  advantage  over  one  situated  at  the  very 
Antipodes.  Absolutely  no  respect  of  persons  was 
shown  by  sternly  inflexible  stewards  to  those  who 
presented  themselves  at  the  iron  gate  of  New  College, 
demanding  admittance  to  the  delegates'  conference- 
hall: — Did  they  carry  a  delegate's  ticket,  or  did  they 
not  ?     That  settled  the  question. 


It  followed  from  this  that  the  Conference  was  a  true 
World  Conference,  as  far  as  it  went.  And  it  further 
followed  that,  though  large,  it  was  essentially  a  business 
Conference,  and  that  it  meant  business.  Societies  and 
Boards  in  distant  lands  do  not  incur  the  expense  of 
sending  representatives  in  order  to  give  them  a  pleasant 
holiday-trip.  Neither  do  men  willingly  carry  about 
in  their  portmanteaux,  and  (to  the  extent  of  their  ability) 
in  their  brains,  eight  Reports  packed  with  thought  and 
information,  and  demanding  the  closest  reading  and 
attention,  unless  they  come  to  the  Conference — the 
entire  business  of  which  was  known  to  be  the  discussion 
of  those  Reports — with  at  least  as  much  seriousness  as 
Members  of  Parliament  attend  St  Stephen's.  The 
long  two-years'  preparation,  in  fact ;  the  issuing  of 
the  eight  Reports  ;  and  the  strict  system  of  representa- 
tion, ensured  something  of  a  conciliar  character  for  this 
Conference.  It  was  indeed  like  a  Council  gravely 
responsible,  in  respect  both  of  the  research  it  conducted 
and  the  debates  it  held,  and,  though  entirely  destitute  of 


THE  DELEGATES  49 

executive  authority,  in  respect  of  its  acts,  its  findings, 
and  its  recommendations  :  for  these,  going  from  such  a 
Council,  must  inevitably  possess  moral  authority  of  the 
most  important  kind.  It  was  no  doubt  this  feeling 
of  individual  and  collective  responsibility  to  God  and 
man  that  gave  to  the  sessions  their  purposefulness,  and 
to  the  debates  their  high  tone  and  standard  of  ability. 


Besides,  the  large  majority  of  those  who  attended  were 
persons  who  were  engaged  in  active  missionary  work 
abroad,  or  administrative  work  at  home  ;  many  of  them 
were  specialists,  some  of  them  the  highest  authorities, 
in  their  several  subjects.  The  leaders  in  the  adminis- 
trative departments  of  all  the  Churches,  Societies,  or 
Boards,  were  there  in  force,  to  see  how  the  work  of  the 
Home  Base  might  be  strengthened,  and  the  Church  rallied 
as  one  man  to  her  task  in  all  its  length  and  breadth. 
Similarly,  very  many  leading  missionaries  were  there, 
able  to  inform  the  Conference  as  to  the  exact  state  of 
national  feeling  or  missionary  progress  existing  at  that 
moment  in  their  fields  of  work,  and  keen  to  pick  up  the 
smallest  hint  given  by  theological  thinker  or  practical 
evangelist,  if  perchance  it  might  be  applied  with  profit 
to  his  own  work. 

4- 
Let  us  now  look  a  little  more  closely  at  these  delegates 
who  have  come  from  every  point  of  the  compass  to  this 
ancient  city  and  now  are  streaming  up  the  Mound  to 
their  council-hall  upon  the  ridge.  They  are  to  an 
extraordinary  degree  interesting,  richly  representative 
as  they  are  of  so  many  races,  nations,  tongues,  traditions, 
ranks,  professions  ;   and  with  such  experience  of  service 

D 


50  EDINBURGH  1910 

in  Church  and  State,  and  of  adventures  in  their  quest 
in  many  a  distant  land.  To  begin  with,  these  1200 
delegates  are  representative  of  many  communions,  and  of 
some  160  Missionary  Boards  or  Societies.  This  alone 
shows  the  technical  representativeness  of  the  Conference, 
if  one  so  may  say.  The  communions  whose  absence  at 
once  strikes  the  observer  are  of  course  the  great  Greek 
and  Roman  Churches — the  former  with  its  notable  Japan 
mission,  the  latter  (Church  of  Xavier  yesterday  and 
Lavigerie  to-day)  with  foreign  missions  all  over  the 
world.  But  who,  on  this  ridge  of  memories  and  of 
hopes,  can  say  what  the  future  may  bring  forth  ? 

Nothing  was  more  striking  than  the  Continental 
representation.  The  Anglo-Saxon's  ignorance  of  lan- 
guage probably  is  (to  do  that  much -abused  person 
justice)  the  sole  cause  of  his  haziness  with  regard  to  the 
strength  and  importance  of  Continental  missions.  He 
is  only  beginning  to  be  aware  that  several  Continental 
missions  are  absolute  models  ;  that  the  Continental 
literature  on  the  subject  is  of  first-rate  importance  ;  and 
that  Germany  (characteristically)  has  done  incom- 
parable work  on  the  science  of  Missions.  The  repre- 
sentation of  the  Continental  Societies  was  unprecedented. 
Statistics  show  that  'beside  the  delegates  from  the 
Moravian  Brethren — of  whom  some  were  from  the  Con- 
tinent and  some  from  Britain  and  America, — there  were 
delegates  from  many  Societies  in  Germany,  Holland, 
Denmark,  Finland,  Norway,  Sweden,  France,  and 
Belgium.  The  official  Continental  delegation  in  all  con- 
sisted of  over  170  members,  representing  forty-one 
Societies  ! 

5. 
The  doyen  of  missionary  scientists  and  statesmen,  Dr 


THE  DELEGATES  51 

Warneck,  was  prevented  by  infirmity  from  being  pre- 
sent, but  he  wrote  an  important  communication  which 
was  read  aloud  at  the  Conference.  He  was  represented, 
too,  in  another  way.  Licentiat  J  oh.  Warneck  was  there, 
learned  son  of  a  learned  father.  Another  great  German 
missionary  was  there,  who,  like  Dr  Warneck,  had  applied 
to  the  subject  of  Missions  the  scientific  thoroughness  of 
their  race — Dr  Julius  Richter,  the  great  missionary  his- 
torian. Whoever  saw  his  face,  broad  with  humour  and 
good-humour,  was  not  surprised  to  learn  that  he  was  the 
life  of  the  Business  Committee,  whose  protracted  labours 
before  and  during  the  Conference  must  have  made  such 
spirits  invaluable.  Another  well-known  man,  Dr  Mirbt 
of  Marburg,  was  there,  a  man  of  recognised  eminence 
in  the  German  Universities,  a  proof  that  the  pheno- 
menon of  missions  is  beginning  to  demand  the  attention 
and  the  serious  study  of  the  University  world  in  Germany, 
as  elsewhere.  Ecclesiastics  from  the  Continent,  too,  are 
there — Moravian  bishops  from  Herrnhut — name  how 
sweetly  fragrant  of  Count  Zinzendorf  and  of  the  most 
missionary  Church  of  all  history  !  ; — and  from  Sweden, 
Bishop  Tottie,  admirably  picturesque  figure,  apparelled 
in  what  was  not  unlike  court-dress,  with  gold  cross 
suspended  over  the  breast,  just  under  the  snow-white 
bands  which  farther  west  are  no  longer  seen  except  in 
Presbyterian  pulpits.  Yonder  venerable  figure,  as  of 
some  aged  viking,  reminds  us  that  Norway  is  still  pro- 
ducing the  old  breed  that  once  harried  the  coast  of 
Lothian.  Danes  and  Norsemen  have  sailed  for  that 
coast  to-day  on  a  very  different  quest.  Another  Scan- 
dinavian delegate,  bearer  of  a  great  name,  is  there — 
Count  Moltke,  sometime  Cabinet  Minister  in  Denmark, 
now  occupying  a  trusted  position  in  the  Court  of  that 
Royal  House  whence  comes  the  Queen-Mother  of  the 
British  King.     He  is  not  the  only  figure  who  has  had 


52  EDINBURGH  1910 

intimate  dealings  with  Continental  ministries  :  Professor 
Meinhof,  a  man  valued  in  the  Imperial  Colonial  Office 
of  Germany,  is  there  ;  and  Oberverwaltungsgerichtsrath 
Dr  Berner,  in  all  missionary  matters  the  private 
counsellor  of  the  Berlin  Foreign  Office.  And  many 
other  valued  counsellors  had  come  from  Holland,  from 
France,  from  Switzerland,  from  Finland,  and  from 
Belgium,  none  more  remarkable  than  that  thick-set 
figure,  well-known  for  his  African  travels,  M.  le  Capitaine 
Alfred  Bertrand,  a  man  who  was  converted  not  only  to 
missions,  but,  it  seems,  to  God,  by  what  he  saw  in  Barotsi- 
land,  where  he  met  Francois  Coillard,  the  Frenchman 
whose  name  stands  among  the  highest  in  the  history  of 
African  missions. 


6. 

When  one  contemplated  the  English-speaking  delega- 
tions, it  was  realised  to  what  an  extraordinary  degree 
they  even  by  themselves  represented  a  world-wide 
constituency.  For  here  were  delegates  from  the  United 
States  of  North  America,  from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
and  from  "All  the  Britains  "  across  the  sea — Canada, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  South  Africa.  With  these 
latter  "  home  "  and  "  foreign  "  missions  often  become 
literally  one  and  the  same,  for  Canadian  Indian,  New 
Guinea  savage,  Maori,  Kafir,  lie  at  their  very  doors,  or  in 
their  very  midst.  There  is  another  thing  that  was  realised 
too,  as  the  venerable  figure  of  an  Australian  chief-pastor, 
Bishop  Pain  of  Gippsland,  rose  to  tell  of  Anglicans  and 
Presbyterians  sitting  in  Council  discussing  as  a  practical 
and  immediate  problem  the  uniting  of  the  two  great 
communions  ;  it  was  realised  that  some  great  central 
problems  may  in  the  providence  of  God  be  first  solved  on 
the  circumference,  and  that  the  latest-born  Churches  may 


THE  DELEGATES  53 

lead  the  way  for  the  elder  ones  towards  the  longed-for 
unity. 

It  was  impressive,  the  proof  afforded  by  these  English- 
speaking  delegates,  no  less  than  by  the  Continentals, 
that  the  missionary  cause  has  engaged  the  serious 
attention  of  men  of  the  very  highest  position  and  intel- 
lectual capacity  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  In  the 
Conference  were  statesmen  and  other  notable  public 
men.  The  name  of  one  President  of  the  United  States 
was  among  the  registered  delegates — Theodore  Roosevelt ; 
and  although  he  was,  to  his  own  deep  regret,  prevented 
from  coming,  he  sent  a  long  and  valuable  letter  which 
was  read  out  at  the  Conference.  Actually  present 
among  the  delegates  representing  his  own  communion,  is 
a  man  who,  to  the  majority  of  the  delegates,  was  of 
virtually  Presidential  rank — William  J.  Bryan,  a  delegate, 
moreover,  who  worked  and  spoke  to  some  purpose  at  the 
Conference.  There,  too,  is  a  man  whose  name  is  honoured 
all  over  the  States  as  one  who  has  stood  and  fought  for 
civic  and  political  righteousness — Seth  Low.  A  some- 
time Cabinet  Minister  of  a  recent  British  ministry  is  there, 
the  President  of  the  Conference,  the  Lord  Balfour  of 
Burleigh  :  once  and  again  he  made  the  whole  Conference 
feel  by  his  words  how  deeply  and  personally  the  cause  of 
Christ  in  the  world  concerned  him.  Might  it  not  be  said, 
that  the  great  Marquis  of  Salisbury  was  there  in  the 
person  of  his  son,  Lord  William  Gascoyne-Cecil  ?  There 
were  philanthropists  present,  like  Lord  Kinnaird,  Sir  John 
Kennaway,  and  Charles  Harford;  great  Indian  administra- 
tors who  stood  for  English  Christianity  as  well  as  English 
statesmanship — Lord  Reay,  ex-Governor  of  Bombay  ;  Sir 
Andrew  H.  L.  Fraser,  ex-Lieut. -Governor  of  Bengal,  Sir 
Mackworth  Young,  ex-Lieut. -Governor  of  the  Punjab  ; 
men  of  the  very  highest  position  and  authority  in  educa- 
tional  science — Professor    Michael    E.    Sadler    and    Dr 


54  EDINBURGH  1910 

Parkin.  Then  there  were  men  present  who  were  some 
of  the  great  Churchmen  of  the  time — from  England,  both 
the  Archbishops  of  the  Church,  though  both  of  them 
Scotsmen  to  the  backbone — Drs.  Randall  Davidson  and 
Cosmo  Gordon  Lang ;  Bishops,  some  of  the  greatest  on 
the  bench — Salisbury,  Southwark,  Birmingham,  Durham; 
from  Scotland,  Moderators  and  sometime- Moderators  of 
the  Kirk  in  its  several  branches  ;  from  the  non-Episcopal 
communions,  notables  like  Sir  George  Macalpine  and 
Sir  Robert  Perks ;  men  whose  work  in  theology  is 
universally  known,  such  as  Principals  Moore  of  Har- 
vard, Douglas  Mackenzie  of  Hartford,  and  Alexander 
Whyte  of  the  New  College ;  Drs  James  Denney,  A.  R. 
MacEwen,  W.  P.  Paterson,  D.  S.  Cairns,  J.  O.  F.  Murray, 
C.  G.  Findlay,  and  R.  F.  Horton ;  well-known  heads  of 
Anglican  theological  colleges,  such  as  Dr  Frere  of  Mir- 
field,  or  Fr.  Kelly  of  Kelham,  with  jolly  face  above  the 
monk's  frock  and  cowl.  All  these  were  not  only  out- 
standing men  on  their  own  special  sphere,  but  they  all 
gave  proof  after  proof  that  the  cause  of  worldwide 
evangelisation  was  to  them  of  the  very  substance  of  their 
religious  life  and  work.  This  should  be  said,  lest,  as  we 
come  to  those  whose  special  sphere  was  missionary  work 
itself,  it  should  be  thought  that  there  was  any  differ- 
ence in  passionate  conviction  and  practical  enthusi- 
asm between  these  and  those.  Inspired  orators  of 
missions  were  there,  like  Robert  Elliot  Speer ;  men 
with  mind-calibre  of  first-rate  statesmen,  like  John  R. 
Mott ;  men  whose  writings  and  administrative  work 
have  gained  universal  recognition  and  widest  reputa- 
tion, as  Bishop  Montgomery,  Eugene  Stock,  Wardlaw 
Thompson,  Harlan  Beach,  Arthur  J.  Brown,  and 
many  others  ;  editors  of  universally  known  magazines 
or  reviews  such  as  The  East  and  the  West,  which,  in  its 
issue  of  that  month,  might  well  claim  to  have  in  some 


THE  DELEGATES  55 

sense  forestalled  the  Edinburgh  Conference  itself ;  and  of 
women  who  are  doing  a  work  as  great  in  quality  as  these, 
Mrs  Gladden,  reputed  one  of  the  finest  speakers  for 
Missions  in  the  United  States  ;  Miss  Small,  whose  work 
in  the  science  and  art  of  training  of  workers  is  quite 
outstanding  ;  Miss  Gollock,  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society ;  Mrs  Creighton,  whose  work  is  valued  both  for 
itself,  and  because  in  it  and  her  the  Church  feels  that  Man- 
dell  Creighton  is  not  lost  to  it.  Then  there  were  laymen, 
especially  from  America,  alert,  burning  with  enthusiasm, 
speaking  absolutely  to  the  point — these  are  men  who 
are  showing  what  laymen  and  business  men  can  do 
for  the  cause,  both  in  the  special  work  they  themselves 
engage  in,  and  in  the  marvellous  movement  they  are 
inspiring  among  the  business-men  and  other  laymen  of 
the  Churches  : — their  presence  and  speaking  is  often  to 
refresh  and  stir  the  whole  Conference. 


What  a  sum-total  of  varied  and  thrilling  interest  was 
in  the  experiences,  had  they  all  been  told,  of  the  men  who 
were  there  fresh  from  active  service  all  over  the  world  ! 
Men  bearing  historic  missionary  names,  like  that  of 
Gulick  ;  men  from  the  Far  East,  builders-up  of  Christian 
Churches,  missionary  prophets  and  seers,  evangelists  and 
physicians — from  the  Philippines,  Bishop  Brent ;  from 
China,  Bishops  Roots  and  Bashford ;  President  Hawks 
Pott  of  Shanghai ;  D.  E.  Hoste,  the  successor  of  a  great 
man  now  gone,  J.  Hudson  Taylor,  and  one  of  the  famous 
Cambridge  Seven  ;  Dr  A.  H.  Smith  and  Dr  J.  C.  Gibson  ; 
from  Korea,  G.  Heber  Jones.  Every  one  of  these  was  a 
leader  of  the  missionary  enterprise  in  the  Far  East ; 
while  from  the  Middle  East  there  were  leaders  in  the 
Indian  educational  world,  well  known  to  Government 


56  EDINBURGH  1910 

as  well  as  to  the  Church,  such  as  Principal  Mackichan  of 
Bombay  ;  veterans  like  Bishop  Thoburn,  whose  name 
was  universally  familiar,  Bishop  Robinson,  and  Bishop 
Oldham  of  Singapore ;  men  who  had  distinguished 
themselves  in  some  special  department,  such  as  Dr  R.  A. 
Hume  of  Ahmednagar,  and  C.  E.  Tyndale-Biscoe,  whose 
bright  and  original  educational  work  helps  to  make  history 
on  the  frontier  ;  while  as  for  Orientalists,  there  were  Dr 
St  Clair  Tisdall,  whose  books  were  known  of  all ;  H.  D. 
Griswold,  the  Sanskrit  scholar,  and  "  Pundit  "  Johnson, 
who  had  so  amazed  learned  Brahman  society  by  preaching 
to  it  in  pure  Sanskrit.  .  .  .  Amongst  his  Indian  brethren, 
Brother  Western,  of  Delhi,  in  friar's  habit  with  a  rope 
for  cincture,  face  pale  and  bleached,  bare-sandalled 
feet ;  one  of  a  band  which,  with  the  spirit  and 
method  that  derive  from  Assisi,  preaches  the  Gospel 
of  service  in  the  endless  plains  and  villages  of  Northern 
India  to-day.  Chiefest  among  chiefs,  a  venerable  figure, 
in  whom  length  of  service,  golden  wisdom  of  counsel, 
pre-eminence  of  reputation,  marked  him  the  Nestor  of 
that  Council  of  Leaders,  Principal  William  Miller  of 
Madras  ;  as  he  was  led  slowly  to  the  dais,  with  tardy  steps 
and  darkening  vision,  not  Nestor  himself  was  ever 
awaited  with  more  respect  to  give  his  counsel  to  the 
mustered  leaders  of  the  Greeks. 

8. 

But  possibly  the  most  interesting,  certainly  by  far  the 
most  significant  figures  of  all,  were  those  of  the  Oriental 
and  African  delegates,  yellow,  brown,  or  black  in  race, 
that  were  scattered  among  the  delegates  in  that  World 
Conference.  For  not  only  by  their  presence  but  by  their 
frequent  contributions  to  the  debates,  they  gave  final  proof 
that  the  Christian  religion  is  now  rooted  in  all  those  great 


THE  DELEGATES  57 

countries  of  the  Orient  and  the  South  ;  and  not  only  so, 
but  that  it  possesses  in  those  countries  leaders  who,  for 
intellectual  ability  and  all-round  competence,  were  fully 
worthy  of  standing  beside  the  men  who  have  been 
mentioned,  even  without  the  traditions  of  two  mil- 
lenniums of  western  Christianity  at  the  back  of  them. 
Seated  among  the  members  of  the  Conference  Business- 
Committee,  which  sat  round  the  table  just  under  the 
President's  chair,  was  Kajinosuke  Ibuka,  in  whose  face, 
immobile  as  a  Buddha,  lurked  the  suspicion  of  the 
enigmatic  twinkle  of  an  Eastern  image  when  some 
missionary  delegate,  in  a  confidential  moment,  tells  the 
Conference  what  missionaries  think  about  the  Japanese, 
or  what  they  suppose  the  Japanese  think  about  them. 
This  man  is  one  of  the  foremost  Christians  of  Japan,  a 
theologian,  a  college  Principal,  one  of  the  nine  who  were 
formed  into  the  first  Protestant  communion  in  Japan. 
Not  far  off  is  his  friend  and  equally  notable  fellow- 
Christian,  the  first  Japanese  Bishop  (Methodist  Episcopal) 
Yoitsu  Honda,  and  Tasuku  Harada,  well  known  in  all 
Japan  as  the  successor  of  Neesima,  famous  founder  of  the 
most  famous  Christian  College  in  Japan.  Here  too  are 
other  eminent  Christians  of  the  yellow  race  :  from  Korea, 
one  who  is  graduate  of  an  American  University,  and  a 
former  Vice-Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  the  Hon.  T.  H. 
Yun  Chi-Ho,  who,  with  a  great  secular  career  before  him 
has  preferred  to  sacrifice  it  all,  and  give  his  life  for  Christ 
and  the  Church.  Chinese  delegates  too,  mostly  in 
irreproachable  Western  dress  ;  but  one  of  them,  a  sturdy 
nationalist,  Tong  Tsing-en,  who  in  the  debates  is  to  speak 
up  for  the  permanent  value  of  the  Confucian  Classics  as  a 
subject  of  Christian  study,  is  in  full  Chinese  costume — 
skull-cap  and  pigtail,  and  stuffed,  quilted  jacket  of  richest 
peacock-blue  silk.  From  India  come  some  whose  light- 
brown  colour  and  clear-cut  features  proclaim  the  Aryan, 


58  EDINBURGH  1910 

and  some  whose  Dravidian  blood  is  shown  by  their  darker 
skin.  Belonging  to  the  former  is  yonder  venerable, 
one  might  say  high-priestly  figure,  a  pure  Brahman  by 
descent,  with  long,  silky-white  beard,  tall,  upright  figure, 
aristocratic,  gentle  features,  and  mild  Indian  voice ; 
a  Bengali  convert  of  the  great  Dr  Duff,  now  an  honoured 
minister  in  the  Punjab;  chosen  to  be  the  Moderator  of  the 
first  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
India,  and  yesterday,  together  with  his  Japanese  fellow- 
Christian  Tasuku  Harada,  made  Doctor  of  Laws  by  the 
ancient  University  of  this  city  of  Edinburgh.  And 
finally,  men  of  African  race,  one,  a  negro  of  immense  size 
glorying  in  his  African  race,  from  Liberia,  the  only 
independent  negro  organised  state  in  Africa. 


From  these,  some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  twelve 
hundred  delegates  to  Edinburgh,  1910,  and  of  the  types, 
races,  occupations  and  spheres  of  service  which  they 
represented. 

On  this  15th  June  they  pass  again  into  the  quadrangle 
of  New  College  ;  in  the  summer  morning  the  sombreness 
of  the  deep  well  of  that  court  merely  tones  down  the 
glare  of  the  June  sun,  creating  a  suffused  half-light,  in  the 
subdued  brilliance  of  which  every  feature  and  all  the 
movement  of  the  scene  stand  out, — the  intent,  animated 
faces  of  the  delegates,  the  summer  dresses  of  the  women. 
The  beauty  of  the  thing  is  incidental ;  yet,  it  is  not 
out  of  harmony  with  the  work  to  which  the  delegates  now 
address  themselves  in  the  Council-hall  above,  where  they 
sit  as  a  Committee  of  the  whole  House,  to  discuss  the 
Report  of  Commission  L,  the  Carrying  of  the  Gospel  to 
all  the  non-Christian  World. 


CHAPTER  VI 


ASPECTS   OF   PROCEDURE 


The  House  when  it  sat  in  Committee  bore  the  same 
aspect  as  when  it  sat  as  a  Conference,  the  only  difference 
being  that  the  chair  was  taken  by  the  Chairman  of 
Committee,  John  R.  Mott,  who  had  been  chosen  to 
preside  at  the  discussions  of  the  Reports  of  all  the 
eight  Commissions.  These  discussions  were  to  occupy 
the  morning  and  afternoon  sessions  of  the  eight  days 
of  conference ;  the  evening  sessions  being  given,  not  to 
discussion,  but  to  hearing  papers  on  certain  universally 
important  aspects  of  missions. 

There  were  many  points  of  great  interest  as  well  as 
of  considerable  picturesqueness  about  these  "  Committees 
of  the  whole  House,"  and  since  it  is  impossible  to  write 
or  read  about  the  debates  profitably  without  having 
some  idea  of  their  setting  in  the  mind,  it  will  be  by  no 
means  lost  time  to  attempt  now  to  picture  that  setting 
at  the  outset. 


Each  day  invariably  began  with  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
of  divine  worship — the  singing  of  a  hymn,  the  hearing 
of  Scripture,  and  prayer  offered  by  one  appointed  to 
this  service.  Then,  after  the  singing  of  another  ringing 
hymn,  the  notices  and  other  "business"  were  got  through. 

And  here  was  a  notable  thing  ;  the  whole  of  that 
business  occupied  a  matter  of  a  few  minutes,  five  or 

59 


60  EDINBURGH  1910 

less.  This  wonder  was  wrought  by  the  publication 
of  a  Daily  Paper  which  was  delivered  by  first  post  at  the 
address  of  every  house  in  Edinburgh  where  a  delegate 
was  residing — a  triumph  of  organisation  indeed.  As 
the  minutes  of  the  proceedings  of  the  previous  day,  and 
the  order  of  the  current  day,  were  succinctly  stated  there, 
minutes  and  notices  were  "  taken  as  read,"  and  the 
Conference  passed  straight  to  the  order  of  the  day. 
So,  within  a  few  minutes  of  the  close  of  the  hymn,  the 
House  was  plunged  into  the  consideration  of  one  of 
the  eight  Reports. 

This  great  concentration  and  business-like  application 
were  highly  characteristic  of  a  Conference  which  dispensed 
at  the  opening  and  the  close  with  all  votes  of  thanks, 
compliments,  and  other  forms  of  mutual  admiration. 
The  King's  Business  demanded  haste — and  application. 
And  this  too  explains  the  intent  silence  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  which  the  Conference  worked.  Insulating  the 
delegates  from  the  outer  world  were  the  corridors,  with 
"  Silence  "  at  frequent  intervals  along  their  walls. 
Like  the  insulating  vacuum  of  a  thermos-flask,  this 
sound-proof  lining  kept  the  interior  of  the  Council-hall 
independent  of  its  exterior.  Windowless  and  therefore 
without  distraction  to  the  eye,  soundless  and  so  without 
distraction  to  the  ear,  deskless  and  thus  without  dis- 
traction for  the  hand,  it  left  the  delegate  no  option 
(even  had  he  had  the  wish)  but  to  give  his  whole  mind 
to  the  matter  on  hand.  And  at  the  times  of  prayer, 
when  the  spirit  of  devotion  was  well  aroused,  the  silence 
of  God  was  heard  within  the  hall. 


Leaving  then   the  buzz   of    the  world   outside,   one 
passed    straight    from    the    humming    city    into    the 


ASPECTS  OF  PROCEDURE  61 

quiet  Council-hall,  and  there  would  find  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Commission  whose  Report  was  being  that 
day  discussed  bringing  forward  his  Report, — a  printed 
copy  of  which  had  been  for  some  weeks  in  the 
hands  of  all  the  delegates, — and  making  his  statement 
upon  the  same.  The  Chairman  of  each  Committee 
had  also  the  right  to  close  the  discussion  at  the  end 
of  the  day,  and  during  the  day  he  might  call  upon  one 
or  other  member  of  his  Committee  to  speak.  But  the 
total  time  allowed  to  him  or  his  Committee  was  limited 
by  standing  order,  and  the  whole  of  the  remaining  time 
was  given  to  members  of  the  Conference,  seven  minutes 
only  being  allowed  to  each  speaker.  The  total  time 
available  for  this  general  debating  was  a  little  over 
three  hours  and  a  half,  after  making  all  deductions,  so 
that  at  least  thirty  seven-minute  speeches  were  heard 
each  day  :  probably  more,  for  while  several  righteous 
persons  took  less  than  their  right  not  one  was  permitted 
a  moment  beyond  it.  At  six  minutes  went  a  warning 
bell ;  at  seven  he  was  rung  down,  and  there  was  an 
end  of  him,  be  he  Bishop,  Moderator,  or  Peer  of  the 
Realm.  At  most  he  was  permitted  to  finish  his  sentence 
(if  it  was  a  very  short  one)  ;  but  often  sentences  and 
possibly  even  s.ome  of  the  longer  words  of  the  language 
were  cut  clean  in  half  by  the  sharp  stinging  sound  of 
the  bell.  These  curtailments  had  occasionally  a  comic 
side.  .  .  .  "  And  now  to  come  to  the  most  important 
aspect  of  my  subject," — (Bell !)  .  .  .  the  most  important 
aspect  of  his  subject  became  identical  with  zero, — at 
least  it  remained  the  sole  property  of  the  speaker. 

The  seven  minutes  rule  certainly  helped  to  keep 
speakers  rigidly  to  the  point,  and  contributed  to  the 
suppression  of  the  Conference-Bore.  Yet,  even  with 
this  maximum  of  420  seconds,  many  speakers  could  not 
resist  the  common  temptation  of  using  some  of  them 


62  EDINBURGH  1910 

in  deploring  the  fewness  of  the  remainder  :  the  wise 
were  those  who  plunged  headlong  and  even  breathless 
into  their  subject  and  kept  up  full  pressure  for  the  whole 
of  their  time.  Some  showed  that  it  was  possible  to 
make  a  great  speech  in  seven  minutes  ;  some  showed, 
equally,  that  even  after  seventy-times-seven  minutes  the 
speech  would  still  have  been  a  small  one.  But  it  will  be 
understood  that  the  level  of  speaking  at  Edinburgh, 
1910,  was,  as  it  should  have  been,  high  and  on  some 
days  very  high  indeed. 


Yet  the  allowance,  small  though  it  was,  was  utterly 
insufficient  to  enable  all,  who  wished,  to  speak.  Not 
once  did  the  much-suffering  Chairman  find  that  at  the 
end  of  the  day  he  had  no  application-cards  before  him  : 
on  most  days  when  the  closure  came  there  was  still 
a  small  pile  on  his  desk.  On  the  last  day  there  were 
close  on  one  hundred  delegates  whose  contribution  to 
that  day's  debate  will  be  buried  with  them.  Under 
these  distressing  circumstances  the  Conference  Executive 
proposed  on  the  second  day  to  reduce  the  allowance 
to  five  minutes,  and  though  a  large  number  voted  for 
the  reduction,  the  motion  did  not  command  the  necessary 
two-thirds  majority,  and  was  lost.  On  the  last  day, 
however,  the  Executive  took  the  law  into  their  own  hands 
and  cut  down  the  allowance  to  five  minutes  : — yet  that 
was  the  day  on  which,  though  nearly  fifty  spoke,  there 
remained  twice  that  who  had  tried,  in  vain,  to  catch 
the  Speaker's  eye. 

Such  circumstances  throw  a  very  severe  strain  upon 
a  Chairman,  for  to  him  in  this  case  was  left  the  sole 
responsibility  of  the  selection, — the  unenviable  re- 
sponsibility of  having  to  look  purely  to  the  interests 


ASPECTS  OF  PROCEDURE  63 

of  the  debate,  and  of  yet  ensuring  that  neither  race  nor 
nation  nor  denomination  nor  "  school  of  thought " 
should  feel  neglected  or  aggrieved.  It  is  to  be  imagined 
that  every  fair-minded  person  pronounced  that  their 
Chairman  had  in  this  case  played  his  difficult  part  to 
perfection.  Yet  he  suffered. — "  If  these  delegates " 
(he  said  one  morning,  alluding  to  the  large  number 
necessarily  prevented  from  speaking  on  the  previous 
day),  "  if  these  delegates  feel  disappointed,  what  must 
be  the  feelings  of  '  the  Chair '  !  "  And  behind  the 
half-humorous  expression  there  was  a  note  that 
conveyed  that  his  duties  had  their  painful  and  even 
their  unpleasant  side. 


Yet  not  one  man  from  either  hemisphere  could  have 
filled  that  chair  as  it  was  filled  by  John  R.  Mott.  Like 
every  Speaker  he  never  spoke  —  that  is  to  say,  he 
made  no  contribution  to  the  debates  themselves,  except 
only  on  the  day  on  which,  as  Chairman  of  a  Commission, 
he  had  to  bring  forward  its  Report ;  yet  his  influence 
and  personality  was  felt  throughout  the  whole  Conference. 
The  whole  physique  of  the  man  suggested  strength, 
with  its  frame  built  on  large  lines,  finely-moulded  head, 
and  rock-strong  face.  When  a  point  of  unusual  interest 
was  being  hazarded,  forward  would  come  the  big  head, 
quick  as  light ;  the  strong  square  j  owl  would  be  thrust 
forward,  the  broad  brow  knit  and  scowl  (if  the  word 
may  be  used  for  a  sight  wholly  gracious),  the  dark 
shaggy  eyebrows  almost  meet,  while  from  under  their 
shadow  shoots  a  gleam  from  suddenly-kindling  eyes  : — 
a  very  lion  preparing  to  spring  at  an  idea.  .  .  .  Thus, 
too,  when  he  himself  addresses  an  assembly,  knits  and 
kindles  the  craggy  tender  face  ;  the  voice  vibrates 
with  fierce   emphases   and   stresses,    while   gestures   of 


64  EDINBURGH  1910 

admirable  justness  accompany  each  point  made.  The 
single  words  seem  literally  to  fall  from  his  lips  (the 
trite  expression  is  for  once  justified),  finished  off  with 
a  deliberation  that  never  slurs  one  final  consonant, 
but  on  the  contrary  gives  that  consonant  the  duty  of 
driving  its  word  home.  And  so  for  the  sentences  also  ; — 
the  conclusion  of  each,  instead  of  dropping  in  tone, 
increases  to  a  sort  of  defiant  sforzando,  which,  when 
his  earnestness  is  at  its  height,  can  be  terrific.  Every 
sentence  is  brought  down  like  a  blow  ;  and,  as  when 
the  heavy  arm  of  some  stone-breaker  bangs  blow  on 
blow  on  the  heart  of  a  lump  of  stone,  until  it  fairly 
smashes  into  fragments,  not  otherwise  hammer  the 
sentences  of  John  R.  Mott,  with  careful,  scientific 
deliberateness,  until,  at  the  end,  the  audience  finds 
itself ,  in  a  word — smashed.  .  .  .  And  then  the  tenderness 
of  the  man  comes  out — as  he  deals  with  the  fragments. 

Such  consistent  power  is  vested  in  no  man  save  him 
in  whom  it  daily  accumulates  by  habitual  communion 
with  the  one  Source.  And  that,  in  fact,  has  been  the 
secret  in  the  case  of  this  man,  and  the  sole  explanation 
of  his  unique  career  as  a  Christian  worker  among  the 
Colleges  and  the  Churches,  culminating  in  Edinburgh, 
1910.   .   .   . 

Yet  this  heavy-weight  fighter  in  the  great  Cam- 
paign had  the  lightest  touch.  That  leonine  gleam 
could  be  also  a  gleam  of  humour.  Time  and  again, 
when  the  Conference  was  dragging  from  weariness,  or 
when  an  awkward  situation  was  developing  and  the 
tension  was  giving  some  anxiety,  the  light  touch  saved 
the  situation ; — one  brief  remark,  dry-spiced  with 
saving  humour,  would  set  things  going  rightly  forward 
again.  An  audience  which  was  probably  radical  and 
democratic  in  its  general  attitude,  might  not  have 
cared  to  be  told  to  limit,  or  even  stop,  its  applause. 


ASPECTS  OF  PROCEDURE  65 

But  what  audience  can  take  it  amiss  when  its  Chair- 
man requests  it  to  "  applaud  concisely  "  ?  .  .  .  Neither 
does  an  assembly,  as  a  general  rule,  appreciate  an 
intimation  that  it,  like  all  assemblies,  is  apt  to  become 
long-winded.  But  it  will  even  cheer  that  intimation 
from  a  Chairman  who,  when  directing  speakers  "to  look 
straight  at  the  clock,"  adds  that  an  acoustical  peculiarity 
which  makes  this  desirable  "  may  possibly  have  other 
advantages."    .    .    . 

5- 
Just  beneath  him  at  the  Committee  table,  sat  the 
General  Secretary  of  the  Conference,  J.  H.  Oldham,  a 
man  strangely  contrasted  with  the  Chairman.  Small 
of  stature,  and  of  unassuming  face  and  mien,  he  slipped 
into  or  out  of  his  place  at  the  table,  as  one  not  merely 
unnoticed  but  not  meriting  notice.  The  Chairman, 
though  he  did  not  intervene  in  the  discussions,  at  least 
gave  the  important  closing  address,  and  his  voice  was 
frequently  and  authoritatively  heard  ;  but  the  Secretary, 
from  beginning  to  end,  never  opened  his  lips,  save  to  give 
out  formal  notices.  Why  then  was  it  that  the  first  time 
he  rose  to  give  out  a  notice,  the  whole  Conference 
applauded  as  though  it  would  never  cease  ?  Some  did 
so,  perhaps,  because  they  wanted  to  show  their  apprecia- 
tion of  a  triumph  of  organisation.  But  those  that  knew 
were  aware  that,  more  than  any  one  other,  the  spirit 
that  was  in  this  very  unobtrusive  exterior  had  been  at 
the  back  of  that  great  Conference,  not  merely  in  respect 
of  its  organisation  and  its  methods,  but  also  of  its  ideals, 
its  aspirations,  and  its  hopes. 


There  was  something  typical  about  this  fact — that 
the  few  men  who  most  made  the  Conference  what  it 


66  EDINBURGH  1910 

was  spoke  least  or  spoke  never.  It  should  prevent  the 
reader  of  this  book  from  thinking  that  this  Conference 
was  "  dominated  by  So-and-so's  personality."  Just 
one  of  its  most  remarkable  features  of  all,  on  the  contrary, 
was  that  it  was  not  dominated  by  personalities  at  all. 
Men  of  marked  personality  did  indeed  speak,  and  this 
book,  if  only  in  order  to  give  a  truthful  impression  of 
the  Conference,  has  had  and  will  have  to  sketch  them 
in  as  vividly  as  may  be.  But  in  no  sense  did  they  make 
the  Conference.  For  one  thing  the  notables  were  too 
many,  as  the  perusal  of  the  last  chapter  may  have 
suggested,  for  any  one  or  any  few  of  them  to  be  able 
to  make  a  dominating  impression.  Men  accustomed 
to  dominate  assemblies  were  half-lost  in  the  crowd. 
Leaders  of  the  Churches  and  the  Societies  might  be  seen 
sitting  in  the  ranks,  or  in  the  shadow  of  the  galleries,  and 
rarely  or  never  coming  forward  to  speak.  In  short, 
the  dominating  impression  was  that  the  Spirit  of  God, 
and  no  man,  was  the  dominating  personality  in  that 
Assembly. 

And  perhaps  this  explained  something  else.  Not 
every  large  Christian  conference,  convention,  or  assembly 
breathes  a  particularly  devotional  or  spiritual  atmo- 
sphere during  its  sessions.  Broadly  speaking,  the 
spirituality  of  a  conference  is  very  often  in  inverse  pro- 
portion to  its  size.  There  wTere  several  features  that 
combined  to  make  the  Edinburgh  Conference  an  exception 
to  this  generalisation  ;  but  most  of  all,  something  which 
was  perhaps  its  most  striking  feature. — Every  day, 
at  the  very  time  of  the  day  when  the  audience  was  at 
its  freshest  and  most  vigorous,  this  great  Conference, 
which  was  daily  finding  its  available  time  insufficient, 
deliberately  suspended  its  discussion  ;  for  a  full  half- 
hour  the  voice  of  debate  was  hushed,  and  the  Conference, 
as  a  Conference,  fell  to  prayer.     At  first  this  half-hour 


ASPECTS  OF  PROCEDURE  67 

was  fixed  for  the  last  one  in  the  morning  session  ;  but 
it  was  found  that  this  meant  that  a  proportion  of  the 
audience  found  it  had  to  go  out  before  the  prayer-hour. 
Then  let  them  miss  a  fraction  of  the  discussion,  not 
that ! ; — and  the  Executive  deliberately  runs  the  prayer- 
hour  into  the  heart  of  the  morning  session — the  very 
cream  of  the  day.  "  We  now  approach  our  great 
central  act  of  worship,"  says  the  Chairman.  .  .  .  Some 
acknowledged  spiritual  leader  ascends  the  dais  ;  over 
the  hushed  Assembly-Hall  his  sole  voice  is  heard,  leading 
thoughts  and  minds  towards  "  The  Quiet," — towards 
God.  As  often  as  not  even  the  voice  of  the  leader  is 
still,  and  this  strange  intercession-meeting  prays  in  a 
symphony  of  united  silence,  in  the  close  Presence  of 
God.   .   .  . 

An  object-lesson  that  came  as  rebuke  to  many  an 
individual  life  there,  and  to  many  a  better-known 
conference  or  ecclesiastical  assembly.  Religious 
assemblies  are  often  very  far  from  devout,  and,  like 
most  persons,  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  there  is  not 
enough  time  for  prayer. — And  this  busiest  of  Assemblies 
gave  half  an  hour  of  the  cream  of  the  day  to  its  God 
in  prayer. 


CHAPTER  VII 


WORLD 


"  It  is  a  startling  and  solemnising  fact  that  even  as  late  as  the 
twentieth  century  the  Great  Command  of  Jesus  Christ  to  carry 
the  Gospel  to  all  mankind  is  still  so  largely  unfulfilled.  It  is  a 
ground  for  great  hopefulness  that,  notwithstanding  the  serious  situa- 
tion occasioned  by  such  neglect,  the  Church  is  confronted  to-day, 
as  in  no  preceding  generation,  with  a  literally  world-wide  oppor- 
tunity to  make  Christ  known.  There  may  have  been  times  when 
in  certain  non-Christian  lands  the  missionary  forces  of  Christianity 
stood  face  to  face  with  as  pressing  opportunities  as  those  now 
presented  in  the  same  fields,  but  never  before  has  there  been  such 
a  conjunction  of  crises  and  of  opening  of  doors  in  all  parts  of  the 
world  as  that  which  characterises  the  present  decade.  It  is 
likewise  true  that  never  on  the  home  field  have  the  conditions  been 
more  favourable  for  waging  a  campaign  of  evangelisation  adequate 
in  scope,  in  thoroughness,  and  in  power.  Therefore,  the  first  duty 
of  a  World  Missionary  Conference  meeting  at  such  an  auspicious 
time  is  to  consider  the  present  world  situation  from  the  point  of 
view  of  making  the  Gospel  known  to  all  men,  and  to  determine 
what  should  be  done  to  accomplish  this  Christ-given  purpose.  .  .  . 
It  is  earnestly  hoped  that  the  way  may  have  been  pointed  [by  the 
labours  of  this  Commission]  to  a  more  scientific  study  of  the  fields 
and  problems,  and,  above  all,  that  enough  may  have  been  done  to 
impress  the  Church  with  the  unprecedented  urgency  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  to  create  a  sense  of  deep  solicitude  as  to  the  grave  con- 
sequences which  must  ensue  if  the  present  unique  world  oppor- 
tunity be  not  improved." 

With  these  words  the  Report  of  the  Commission   on 
Carrying  the  Gospel  to  all  the  Non-Christian  World  opens : 

68 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   69 

and  it  was  that  Report  which  the  Conference  now  met  to 
discuss  on  this  first  morning. 

First,  the  Chairman  of  the  Commission,  John  R.  Mott, 
rose  to  present  the  Report  (temporarily  vacating  the 
Chair  for  that  purpose) .  As  the  Report  was  a  printed 
volume  equivalent  to  over  three  hundred  pages  he  "  as- 
sumed it  read,"  and  proceeded  to  make  certain  general 
observations  upon  it  by  way  of  summing  up. 

"  The  assumption,"  grimly  remarked  the  speaker, 
"  may  be  a  large  one  !  " — but  beyond  doubt  the  large 
majority  of  the  delegates  had  found  time  to  give  a  first 
careful  reading  to  a  really  great  production.  Considering 
its  length,  the  multiplicity  of  the  details  and  figures  it 
deals  with,  and  the  fact  that  it  is  the  essence  extracted 
from  five  hundred  sets  of  answers  received  from  mission- 
ary correspondents,  it  is  a  wonderfully  readable  and 
lucid  document.  This  readableness  was  largely  due  to 
the  co-ordinating  genius  of  the  Commission,  headed  by 
its  Chairman. 

In  fact,  it  may  confidently  be  said  that  if  anyone  wishes 
to  get  in  small  compass  a  world-survey  of  enthralling 
interest,  touching  at  every  point  upon  tremendous 
national  and  international  problems,  both  social  and 
racial,  political  and  religious,  let  him  obtain  and  read 
this  Report  of  this  Commission.  It  is  a  veritable  Blue- 
book  of  the  Civitas  Dei  !  Could  any  other  Empire  than 
that  of  the  Church  of  Christ  have  issued  a  document 
so  world-wide  in  scope,  so  human  in  interest  and  of  such 
truly  great  importance  ? 

In  presenting  the  Report,  the  Chairman  recorded 
six  outstanding  convictions  and  impressions  which 
(said  he),  "  have  laid  strong  hold  upon  us  during  the 
nearly  two  years  in  which  we  have  been  engaged  in  the 
preparation  of  our   Report."      We  have  here,  then,  a 


70  EDINBURGH  1910 

division  of  the  subject-matter  as  it  appeared  finally  to  the 
minds  of  the  men  most  qualified,  by  character  and  cir- 
cumstance, to  speak  on  this  subject.  And  in  this  chapter, 
therefore,  we  cannot  do  better  than  to  follow  that  division : 
especially  as  all  the  most  valuable  matter  of  both  the 
Report  itself,  the  debate  on  it,  and  the  evening  addresses 
that  are  to  be  grouped  with  this  Commission,  can  be 
ranged  under  these  same  six  headings. 


I. 

"  The  first  of  these  impressions  is  that  of  the  vastness  of  the  task 
of  evangelising  the  world.   .   .   ." 

And  no  marvel,  when  we  consider  that  this  Report 
makes  a  definite  attempt  to  consider  the  problem  of 
evangelising  two-thirds  of  the  human  race,  composed  of 
perhaps  a  billion  souls,  and  representing  a  veritable  tangle 
of  races,  creeds,  languages  and  lands,  scattered  over  Asia, 
Africa,  the  two  Americas,  and  the  Islands  of  the  Sea  ! 
A  glance  at  the  index  shows  that  the  extensive  aspect 
of  the  problem  has  not  been  shirked.  In  Asia  not  only 
are  the  Levant,  India,  and  the  great  yellow  races  of  the 
Far  East  (countries  in  which  there  is  a  traditional  interest) 
treated  of  in  the  Report,  but  less  known  or  cared  for 
countries  receive  careful  attention,  such  as  Malaysia, 
Formosa,  Siam,  or  great  tracts  like  Central  Asia,  usually 
left  out  of  reckoning  altogether.  The  Report  is  weak  only 
on  North  Central  Asia,  as  one  delegate,  speaking  of 
Mongolia,  pointed  out  :.  and  it  was  gaps  of  this  character 
that  the  Vice-Chairman  of  the  Commission  (Dr  Richter) 
was  alluding  to  when  he  desiderated  the  forming  of  a 
Continuation  Committee,  or  International  Board,  to 
complete  the  world-wide  study  and  survey  so  greatly 
inaugurated  by  this  Report.     Then  there  is  the  section 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   71 

of  Africa,  an  honest  attempt  to  sift  and  analyse  the 
congerie  of  different  conditions  that  obtain  in  that  one 
Continent  : — the  survey  goes  methodically  round  the 
coast,  noting  the  districts  that  are  well-occupied,  half- 
occupied,  or  unoccuped  in  those  seven  great  divisions 
of  the  Continent  which  the  detour  discovers.  The  large 
island  of  Madagascar  is  treated  as  an  eighth  division. 
The  Americas  are  treated  from  the  viewpoint,  first,  of  the 
aboriginal  "  Indians,"  and  secondly,  of  the  immigrant 
Orientals,  in  the  following  six  great  sections — South 
America,  the  West  Indies,  Central  America,  the  United 
States,  Canada,  and  the  Arctic  regions.  Finally,  there  are 
sections  on  the  scattered  nation  of  the  Jews,  Oceania, 
and  the  "  unoccupied  sections  of  the  world." 

No  wonder,  the  speaker  said,  "  the  process  has  been  one  >/ 
that  has  simply  overwhelmed  us  with  a  sense  of  the 
vastness,  the  variety,  and  the  infinite  difficulty  of 
carrying  the  Gospel  to  literally  all  the  non-Christian 
world."  But  in  the  same  breath  he  told  the  Conference 
of  the  advantage  which  such  an  overwhelming  experience 
nevertheless  brought  with  it,  "  making  the  stumbling 
block  a  stepping-stone  "  : — in  the  first  place,  it  was  an 
effectual  cure  to  parochialism,  which  is  clean  against 
the  spirit  of  Christianity  ;  and  secondly,  it  was  only  this 
infinitely  difficult  task  that  would  drive  the  Christian 
Church  to  close  its  ranks,  and,  further,  learn  to  seek  and 
claim  the  power  of  her  infinite  Lord. 

In  the  debate,  it  is  hardly  surprising  it  was  not  found 
possible  to  touch  equally  on  all  the  aspects  of  the  world- 
wide labour.  Even  in  the  various  parts  of  a  universal 
task  and  duty  there  are  grades  of  urgency,  and  the  debate 
on  this  first  Commission,  and  those  on  subsequent  days, 
showed  fairly  clearly  that  the  storm-centres  of  interest 
and  urgency  and  anxiety  in  the  oecumenical  crusade 
to-day  might  be  roughly  denned  as  (i)  India,  (2)  the  yellow 


72  EDINBURGH  1910 

Farther  East,  (3)  Islam  as  a  whole,  especially  where  it  is 
advancing.1 

2. 

"  Tne  second  outstanding  impression  and  conviction  of  the  / 
memoers  of  the  Commission  is  that  the  time  is  really  at  hand — 
not  coming — when  the  Christian  Church  should  bestir  itself  as 
never  before  in  the  countries  of  the  non-Christian  world  in  which  it 
is  already  at  work." 

It  seems,  indeed,  a  clear  proof  of  God's  guiding  hand, 
that  the  countries  upon  which  He  has  led  the  Church 
to  concentrate  her  forces,  such  as  India,  the  Far  East, 
and  certain  leading  races  in  Africa,  should  be  exactly  the 
countries  which  it  is  now  most  critically  important,  for 
reasons  which  could  not  have  been  wholly  foreseen 
years  ago,  to  win  for  Christ  ! 

And  the  debate  deepened  the  impression  of  the  Report. 
Dr  George  Robson,  of  the  U.F.  Church  of  Scotland 
Foreign  Mission  Board,  who  had  made  a  lifelong  study 
of  Africa,  declared  after  a  most  careful  analysis  of  the 
present  state  of  affairs  that  the 

"  instant  need  is  the  trebling  of  the  missionary  force,  I  do  not 
say  to  occupy  the  field — very  far  from  that,  but  to  meet  those 
urgent  needs  of  existing  missions  which  are  at  this  moment  sorely 
burdening  the  hearts  of  the  too  few  labourers  !  " 

And  his  concluding  words, 

"  the  very  first  thing  which  requires  to  be  done  if  Africa  is  to  be 
won  for  Christ  is  to  throw  a  strong  missionary  force  right  across 
the  centre  of  Africa  to  bar  the  advance  of  the  Moslem  and  to 
carry  the  Gospel  northwards  into  the  Sudan," 

were  powerfully  reinforced  and  endorsed  by  Dr  Karl 
Kumm,  who  rose  immediately  after.  Coming  fresh  from 
an  adventurous  journey  right  across  a  belt  of  Africa  never 

1  E.g.  in  all  Africa,  in  Malaysia,  in  parts  of  India  and  the  Russias. 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   73 

previously  traversed  (that  between  lat.  io°  and  5°  N., 
— the  ''  Moslem  fringe  "),  he  spoke  of  what  he  had  seen 
in  that  borderland  between  Islam  and  heathendom, — 
tribe  after  tribe  of  the  sturdiest  and  hardest-fighting 
peoples  in  Africa  becoming  gradually  Islamised  from 
the  North — in  the  North  Cameroon  district,  along  the 
Shari  River,  and  all  along  the  watershed  between  the 
Shari,  the  Congo,  and  the  Nile  streams.  The  natural 
barriers  of  resistance  were  gradually  being  neutralised 
by  the  extension  of  European  authority,  British,  German, 
and  French,  which  tended  to  give  Islam  absolutely  free 
play,  while  invariably  cramping  all  forces  that  might 
neutralise  it.  His  warning  that  the  Central  Sudan  is  in 
a  state  of  religious  solution,  and  that,  should  a  fanatical 
uprising  take  place  there  after  the  tribes  have  been  won 
for  the  Crescent  faith,  it  might  have  very  serious  con- 
sequences, received  a  good  comment  from  a  testimony  from 
Dr  Miller  of  North  Nigeria,  quoted  later  on  in  the  debate. 
In  this  he  completely  endorsed  Dr  Robson  and  Dr 
Kumm's  indictments  of  government  policy  in  regard  to 
Islam,  and  emphasised  the  paramount  importance  of 
winning  the  Hausa  race  for  Christ ;  and  to  this  end  made 
a  carefully  considered  appeal  for  forty  workers  to 
evangelise  that  race,  by  educational  methods  chiefly, 
and  use  it  as  a  missionary  force  to  stem  the  tide  of  Islam. 
...  A  Swiss  delegate,  Mons.  A.  Grand]  ean,  showed 
how  exactly  the  same  crisis  faced  the  worker  as  far 
south  as  Portuguese  East  Africa  !  and  related  how  a 
distinguished  Governor-General  of  Mozambique  had 
written  to  his  mission  that  it  was  high  time  for  Christians 
of  all  denominations  to  unite  in  facing  the  common 
problem  of  Islam !  And  an  evening  address,  sub- 
sequently delivered  by  another  speaker,  showed  how 
exactly  the  same  problem  faced  the  Church  in  British 
Central   Africa,   in   British   and   German   East   Africa, 


74  EDINBURGH  1910 

and  all  along  the  Guinea  Coast.  The  same  speaker, 
quoting  a  careful  Swiss  investigator,  Wiirz  of  Basel, 
showed  further  how  the  Senussi  movement  of  the  Sahara 
is  the  mainspring  of  almost  the  whole  Islamic  movement 
in  the  northern  half  of  the  continent,  and  that  in  this 
matter  the  Church  was  faced  with  an  "  impossibility," 
which  only  a  mountain-moving  faith  could  remove. 

There  was  not  time  to  hear  witnesses  from  the  great 
successful  missions  to  the  heathen  races  of  Africa — 
especially  those  in  Nigeria,  Uganda,  British  Central 
Africa,  and  South  Africa  ;  but  it  was  felt  (and  the  Report 
endorsed  the  impression)  that  in  their  establishment 
and  extension  lies  the  chief  hope  of  winning  what  Islam 
has  not  yet  won,  and  winning  back  what  the  supineness 
of  the  Church  has  lost  to  that  great  faith,  which  is  at 
present  running  a  winning  race  for  heathen  Africa. 
Recent  words  of  responsible  German  and  British x 
writers  on  African  affairs  have  shown  that  there  is  another 
side  to  the  official  pro-Islamic  attitude  so  much  in 
evidence  all  over  Africa,  and  lend  point  to  a  sentence 
in  one  of  the  evening  addresses  that,  unless  the  present 
drift  is  reversed,  we  shall  probably  before  long  see  Islam 
assuming  the  attitude  of  the  heaven-sent  uniter  and  vindicator 
of  the  African  race,  reaping  most  of  the  harvest  sown  by 
the  Ethiopianism  of  to-day. 

In  passing  from  Africa  to  Asia,  Islam  is  found  to  be 
the  bridge ;  and  for  this  and  other  reasons  that  religion 
makes  our  best  transition  to  the  consideration  of  the 
Middle  and  Farther  East. 

The  distinguished  Orientalist,  Dr  St  Clair  Tisdall, 
showed  the  necessity  of  strengthening  work  in  Egypt, 
Persia,2  the  Levant,  and  other  great  centres,  in  order  to  be 

1  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston  among  the  latter. 

2  The  opening  doors  and  expanding  situation  in  the  Turkish  Empire, 
and  especially  Syria,  were  mentioned  with  great  effect. 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD    75 

ready  for  the  opening  up  of  difficult  countries  like  Arabia 
and  Afghanistan.  Dr  Zwemer  of  America  and  Arabia, 
a  man  who  more  than  any  other  had  worked,  with  very 
remarkable  success,  to  arouse  the  interest  of  Christendom 
in  the  Mohammedan  problem,  emphasised  the  same 
thing  in  the  first  part  of  a  speech  which  caused  the 
Scotsman  next  day  to  write  that  "  Dr  Zwemer 
showed  us  that  it  was  possible  to  make  a  great  speech 
in  seven  minutes."  The  second  and  principal  half  of 
his  speech,  however,  was  an  appeal,  inspired  by  faith 
and  courage,  not  only  to  strengthen  existing  centres, 
but  also  to  evangelise  the  unoccupied  ones.  For  example, 
he  was  in  favour  of  opening  a  mission  in  Jidda,  the  port 
of  Mecca  !  besides  other  points  on  the  long  Arabian 
coast  ;  while  a  Scottish  missionary  from  Arabia  was 
quoted  as  challenging  the  Church  at  least  to  try  the 
effect  of  a  mission  to  Mecca  and  Medina  ! 

It  has  been  said  above  that  the  interest  of  the  debate  V 
and  the  Report  alike  centered  in  the  countries  where 
internal  movements  were  most  marked  and  the  actual 
situation  was  most  critical.  This  fact  naturally  caused 
a  great  focussing  of  interest  on  India  and  the  Far  East  ; 
but  before  proceeding  to  what  was  said  about  these 
countries,  it  may  be  well  to  quote  one  sentence  which 
related  their  problems  to  the  problem  of  Islam  which 
has  just  been  under  consideration. 

"  I  would  have  you  recollect  "  (the  speaker  said)  "  that  even 
were  our  Japanese,  our  Korean  and  Manchurian,  our  Chinese  and 
Indian  problems  solved,  their  present  crises  happily  met  and  sur- 
mounted, and  a  Christian  Far  East  added  to  the  Catholic  Church, 
that  great,  central,  unsympathetic,  alien,  and  hostile  wedge 
[Islam]  would  cut  Eastern  and  Western  Christendoms  absolutely 
in  half,  insulating  them  from  each  other,  and  exhibiting  to  God 
and  man  not  merely  a  seam,  but  a  rent,  from  top  to  bottom, 
in  the  seamless  robe  of  the  great  Catholic  Church — the  Church 
of  a  Humanity  wholly,  but  for  Islam,  won  for  Christ !  "  .  .  . 


76  EDINBURGH  1910 

Some  exceedingly  striking  things  were  said  about 
India.  One  of  the  "  findings  "  of  the  Report  was  that 
the  national  and  spiritual  movements  in  India  to-day 
present  a  strong  challenge  to  Christian  missions  to 
enlarge  and  deepen  their  work.  Such  was  the  sentence 
with  which  the  Report  summed  up  its  own  important 
section  on  India.  And  the  debate  underscored  it. 
For  example,  Dr  Robert  Stewart  from  the  Punjab  asked, 
in  a  striking  speech,  How  many  missionaries  are  necessary 
to  evangelise  the  country  in  our  generation  ?  "  The 
answer  to  this  question,"  he  said,  has  been  given  by  the 
Madras  Decennial  Conference  which  met  in  1902.  The 
question  was  considered  there  scientifically.  They  made 
their  calculation  that  one  missionary  for  every  25,000 
would  be  necessary.  This  calculation  was  not  merely 
a  mechanical  one  ;  it  was  done  with  prayer,  earnestly, 
and  the  Conference  made  an  appeal  for  9000  workers 
in  order  to  secure  this  ideal.  He  showed  that  now, 
in  1910,  8000  of  these  still  have  not  been  sent,  and  ear- 
nestly appealed  that  that  ideal,  deliberately  held  up 
by  a  united  conference  of  Continental,  American,  and 
British  representatives,  should  not  be  quietly  put  out 
of  sight.  Another  delegate,  Sherwood  Eddy,  likewise 
emphasised  the  necessity  of  sending  to  India  the  very 
best  minds  the  Church  possesses,  for  the  very  best  are 
not  too  good  for  that  absolutely  invaluable  material 
lying  to  our  hand  in  the  educated  youth  of  India  to-day. 

"  If  we  "  (he  said) "  could  have  a  few  of  the  right  men  rightly 
placed  among  those  who  are  the  brain  of  India,  they  will  largely 
mould  the  future  of  thought.  But  it  is  increasingly  difficult  to 
find  such  men  either  in  Britain  or  in  America." 

An  appeal  for  our  best, — for  the  men  who  now  enter 
for  the  Indian  Civil  Service !  It  seemed  indeed  clear 
at  the  Conference  that  such  men  might  well  transfer 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   77 

their  careers  to  the  work  of  Christ  if  they  really  desire 
to  mould  and  shape  that  great  ancient  land. 

Then  China.  The  Report  had  written  some  tremend- 
ously strong  pages  on  that  colossus  of  the  nations,  and 
the  debate  left  one  with  the  impression  that  of  all  other 
countries,  perhaps,  China  is  to-day  the  chief  storm- 
centre  of  urgent  opportunity  in  the  whole  world.  And 
for  this  reason  :  now  is  the  time  of  the  rising  tide,  the 
flood-tide,  in  China ;  and  the  watchmen  on  the  outlook- 
tower  are  warning  the  Church  that  the  hour  is  nearing 
high-tide,  the  begining  of  the  ebb  !  For  example,  T.  Y. 
Chang,  a  Chinese  Professor  from  Peking,  made  the 
following  statements,  which,  even  allowing  for  an  element 
of  exaggeration,  are  sufficiently  startling  : — 

"  The  people  of  China  are  now  giving  away  the  old,  but  they  have 
not  yet  grasped  the  new.  .  .  .  The  minds  of  the  Chinese  are  now 
empty,  and  this  is  the  time  for  Christ  to  step  in.  If  you  wait  four 
or  five  years,  or  even  three  years,  you  will  find  such  a  change  in 
China  that  the  minds  of  her  people  will  be  blocked.  I  beseech  you 
to  take  immediate  steps.  In  five  years  it  will  be  too  late  !  Do  not 
wait  until  it  is  too  late,  as  was  the  case  with  Japan.  Take  steps  now." 

He  meant  of  course  that  in  the  case  of  Japan  the 
Christian  Church  had  failed  to  seize  the  moment  when 
Japan  as  a  nation  was  plastic  and  as  a  nation  might  have 
been  influenced  in  her  length  and  breadth  for  Christ, 
and  that  now  Japan  had  to  some  extent  settled  down 
to  look  in  other  directions  for  her  ideals  and  her  guides. 
These  moments  of  trembling  plasticity  in  nations  are  in 
their  very  nature  of  the  case  short,  transient  periods. 
The  success  of  many  an  experiment  in  chemistry  depends 
upon  seizing  the  few  limited  seconds  when  all  the  con- 
ditions are  favourable.  And  this  Conference  brought  out 
with  terrible  clearness  that  such  is  the  state  of  things 
in  China  now  !  Professor  Chang  was  not  the  only  man 
to  bring  out  this  supreme  consideration.     Bishop  Bash- 


78  EDINBURGH  1910 

ford,  of  North  China,  bore  out  his  Chinese  confrere  : 
Christianity  (he  said  in  his  evening  address)  will  suffer 
for  centuries  through  the  failure  of  the  Churches  at  that 
time  to  capture  for  Christ  a  nation,  Japan,  then  peculiarly 
open  to  the  Gospel — a  nation  destined  for  a  time  at  least 
to  become  the  leader  of  the  Orient.  We  shall  see  in  a 
moment  that  this  statement  did  not  in  the  least  imply 
lukewarmness  on  the  part  of  the  Bishop  towards  Japan 
as  a  mission-field,  but  simply  was  intended  to  force  the 
Conference  to  realise  the  super-importance  of  the  oppor- 
tunity in  China  to-day.  And  the  Bishop  may  have  been 
right  when  he  said  (speaking  of  the  Far  East  as  a 
whole) — 

"  Not  since  the  days  of  the  Reformation,  not  indeed  since  Pente- 
cost, has  so  great  an  opportunity  confronted  the  Christian  Church. " 
"  The  Far  East  as  a  whole  stands  at  the  parting  of  the  ways  " — 
and  added  on  another  occasion — 

"  No  such  opportunity  is  likely  to  confront  the  Christian  Church 
again  till  the  Day  of  Judgment  !  " 

It  may  perfectly  well  be  true : — certainly  never  before 
has  one-quarter  of  the  human  race  been  all  of  a  sudden 
thrown  violently  open  to  external  influences  of  the 
deepest  and  most  penetrating  sort.  Such  a  crisis  may 
well  prove  incapable  of  repetition  in  the  future. 

The  same  speaker,  one  of  the  highest  authorities  on 
his  subject,  showed  too  that  China  will  soon  be  in  the 
throes  of  that  industrial  transition,  which  England  and 
Europe  found  dangerous  enough,  from  hand  labour  to 
machine  labour.  And  this  while  she  is  passing  through 
a  fundamental  political  and  intellectual  revolution  also  ! 
The  Bishop  made  the  Conference  feel  through  and 
through  that  "  it  will  demand  every  possible  effort  of 
Christian  statesmanship  and  leadership  to  bring  the 
Empire  through  this  revolution." 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   79 

And  there  are  strong  elements  of  hope.  At  least  two 
speakers  who  knew  the  country  expressed  their  wonder 
and  delight  at  the  event  which  had  happened  so  recently 
in  Peking,  where  special  religious  meetings  had  been 
held  among  the  scholars  of  four  colleges  and  schools, 
and  in  these  services  "  five  hundred  and  one  young  people 
signed  their  names  pledging  their  allegiance  to  the 
evangelisation  of  China." 

The  situation  was  shown,  further,  to  be  equally 
critical,  and  even  more  hopeful,  in  Korea  and  Manchuria. 
The  Hon  T.  H.  Yun,  a  Korean  of  highest  character 
and  standing,  showed  that  the  very  rapidity  with  which 
Korea  was  becoming  Christianised  was  likely  to  con- 
stitute a  danger.  He  said,  that  if  they  had  a  sufficient, 
number  of  missionaries  to  take  hold  of  the  situation, 
the  rapid  increase  of  the  converts  would  not  mean  so 
much  danger ;  but,  with  so  few,  either  European  or 
Korean,  there  was  a  danger  that  the  converts  might  not 
be  taught  as  thoroughly  as  was  necessary  in  order 
to  lay  deep  and  wide  the  foundation  of  the  Church  of 
the  future.  And  another  delegate  said  roundly  that 
some  of  the  best  evangelists  in  Christendom  should  be 
sent  to  Korea.  And  with  regard  to  Japan,  so  far  from 
the  failure  to  take  full  advantage  of  the  opportunity  there 
in  the  last  century  being  a  reason  for  discouragement 
now,  one  missionary  to  that  land  said  that  Christianity  is 
only  just  coming  into  Japan  :  the  foundation  is  ready 
laid,  and  the  sympathy  of  many  of  the  leaders  is  secured. 
While  the  very  speaker  who  had  emphasised  the  previous 
failure  was  the  one  who  best  of  all  brought  the  Conference 
to  see  the  tremendous  greatness  of  the  opportunity  that 
still  existed.  She  had  abandoned  the  individualism 
which  she  fancied  she  had  learned  from  Spencer  and 
"  had  passed  almost  en  masse  to  the  Christian  conception 
of  the  state  "  :   the  question  was,  would  she  decide  "  for 


80  EDINBURGH  1910 

international  beneficence  against  national  selfishness  ?  " 
Her  difficulties  had  enormously  increased  through 
her  continental  victories.  And  the  speaker  concluded 
with  a  ringing  message.  He  described  how  the  military 
spirit  is  saying  to  Japan,  "  Follow  on  in  the  path  in  which 
already  you  have  won  such  glory  :  exploit  these  people 
to  reimburse  your  losses.  Initiate  the  federation  of 
the  yellow  races.  Control,  and,  if  the  necessity  arises, 
supplant  the  Manchu  dynasty ;  and,  as  opportunity 
offers,  rise  to  the  leadership  of  the  Orient.' '  In  all 
this  the  speaker  seemed  to  see  Satan  taking  Japan, 
as  he  took  the  Master,  into  a  high  mountain,  and  showing 
her  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  saying  :  "  All 
these  things  will  I  give  thee,  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and 
worship  me."  But  the  Christ-spirit,  he  cried,  suggests 
continuance  in  the  path  of  sacrifice  ;  such  justice  and 
generosity  towards  the  Koreans  as  presently  will  make 
them  proud  of  the  flag  of  the  Rising  Sun,  as  Australians 
are  proud  of  the  Union  Jack  ;  such  respect  for  the 
territory  of  China  in  Manchuria  as  will  assure  Japan, 
without  a  war,  the  moral  and  intellectual  leadership 
of  the  Far  East.  At  this  time,  when  the  Japanese 
have  discarded  the  Spencerian  for  the  Christian 
philosophy  of  the  state,  when  Christian  Japanese  are 
rising  to  leadership  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers, 
but  when  only  one  hundred  thousand  Japanese  out  of 
fifty  million  are  Christians,  and  forty  million  practically 
unreached,  the  Christian  Church  should  not  dream  of 
retiring  from  the  Empire.  She  should,  he  earnestly  urged, 
push  forward  her  ablest  and  most  apostolic  spirits,  and 
help  to  capture  for  Christ,  and  "  lead  to  her  own  highest 
destiny,  the  present  leader  of  the  Orient !  " 

The  emphatic  words  of  the  Chairman  under  this 
aspect  may  close  this  section.  Surely  they  will  now 
command  the  assent  of  the  reader  and  carry  him  with 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   81 

them  : — "  We  believe  that  while  it  is  certainly  true 
that  there  have  been  times  when  in  certain  non-Christian 
countries  the  situation  confronting  the  Church  was  as 
critical  as  it  is  at  present,  there  never  has  been  a  time 
when  in  all  the  non-Christian  countries  the  conditions 
confronting  Christianity  were  so  favourable  for  a  great 
and  well-considered  advance  as  at  the  present  time." 


3- 

"  The  third  outstanding  conviction  of  the  Commission  is  that 
the  time  is  also  at  hand  when  the  Church  should  enter  the  so- 
called  unoccupied  fields  of  the  world" 

What  and  how  many  those  lands  are,  the  Report 
shows  in  a  long  section  which  makes  melancholy  reading. 
It  traces  the  existence  of  so  much  unoccupied  territory 
to  "  lack  of  an  adequate  and  comprehensive  vision  :  .  .  . 
the  thought  of  carrying  the  gospel  to  all  the  world  has 
not  widely  dominated  missionary  effort ; "  and  this 
because  there  has  never  been  any  agency  co-relating 
the  operations  of  the  various  Societies.  It  follows 
from  this  (maintains  the  Report),  that  not  until  this 
co-operation  and  the  machinery  for  it  actually  come 
about,  will  this  reproach  of  a  Church  that  is  now  in  the 
twentieth  century  of  her  history  be  removed. 

In  the  discussion  a  few  pathetic  samples  of  neglect 
were  given.  An  Indian  delegate  surprised  everybody 
with  the  apparent  paradox  that  India  ought  to  be  called 
the  "  Neglected  Continent  "  :  and  he  backed  his  assertion 
first  by  asserting  that,  in  proportion  to  their  populations, 
India  was  less  adequately  occupied  than  Africa  or 
S.  America ;  and  secondly  (a  less  disputable  and  more 
suggestive  statement),  that  there  were  vast  regions 
in  N.  India  with  two  or  three  millions  of  population 
without  a  single  missionary  or  Christian  worker.     The 


82  EDINBURGH  1910 

states  and  districts  which  were  officially  certified  as 
unoccupied  by  any  form  of  missionary  effort  had  a 
population  of  one  hundred  million  souls !  On  the  other 
hand,  only  the  Madras  district,  in  his  opinion,  was 
anything  like  adequately  manned.  And  this  though 
there  were  fifty  millions  of  people  ready  to  come  en 
masse  into  the  Christian  Church  if  the  workers  were 
supplied  !  This  being  so,  he  remarked  with  an  indigna- 
tion that  evoked  a  loud  expression  of  assent, 

"  It  seems  to  me  to  be  criminal  when  there  are  these  vast  tracts 
of  country  clamouring  for  the  gospel  message,  for  new  Missionary 
Societies  ...  to  be  planted  right  in  the  centre  of  districts  already 
fairly  well  occupied  !  " 

Some  cries  of  Shame!  amid  the  applause  showed 
that  this  speaker  had  hit  the  mark.  He  concluded  by 
telling  of  the  hopeful  movement  by  wThich  five  or  six 
of  such  unoccupied  districts  were  being  taken  over 
for  the  evangelisation  of  the  country  by  Indian 
missionaries,  supported  by  Indian  money,  under  Indian 
management.  .  .  .  But  he  pled  for  a  large  increase 
of  foreign  help.  The  estimate  of  the  jour-fold  increase 
of  the  missionary  force  in  India  has  already  been  alluded 
to. 

Two  dim  vast  regions  of  unoccupied  A^ia  were  also 
spoken  of  that  day.  The  Rev.  G.  H.  Bondfield  of  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  maintained  that 
Mongolia,  Gilmour's  Mongolia,  was  still  an  unoccupied 
territory.  He  told  how  one  day  he  and  his  party 
parted  from  one  of  their  agents,  himself  not  a  Christian, 
and  stood  watching  him  as  he  went  off  westwards  into 
the  desert,  amongst  the  tents,  the  only  worker  to  this 
day  among  that  pastoral  people  of  2,600,000  souls. 
What  a  vivid  picture  ! 

"  '  What,  you  are  stepping  Westward  ! ' — l  Yea.' 
.  ,  .  Yet  who  would  stop,  or  fear  to  advance. 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD  83 

Though  home  and  shelter  he  had  none 
With  such  a  sky  to  lead  him  on  ? 
The  dewy  ground  was  dark  and  cold, 
Behind  all  gloomy  to  behold, 
And  stepping  Westward  seemed  to  be 
A  kind  of  heavenly  destiny.  .  .  ." 

So  might  it  be ! — A  Swedish  delegate,  one  of  the 
heroic  few  who  occupy  Central  Asia  for  Christ,  spoke 
of  an  area  of  2,700,000  square  miles  with  only  three 
mission-stations  !  The  great  unevangelised  territories 
in  Africa  have  been  already  partially  alluded  to,  but 
it  would  take  all  too  long  to  complete  the  list.  And  so 
for  many  tribes  in  South  America.  But  enough  has  been 
said  to  impress  whoever  has  even  a  little  aspiration 
and  desire,  that  the  bulk  of  the  heavy  task  still  remains 
to  be  done. 

4- 

Very  logically  then,  / 

"  The  fourth  impression  which  seizes  us  with  great  conviction 
is  that  if  this  world-situation  is  to  be  met  there  must  be  united 
planning  and  concerted  effort.  .  .  .  We  fall  back  frankly  in  front 
of  this  task  if  it  must  be  faced  by  a  divided  Christendom.  ...  It  - 
is  our  deep  conviction  that  a  well-considered  plan  of  co-operation 
in  the  missionary  work  of  the  Societies  represented  in  this  hall, 
entered  into  and  carried  out  with  a  sense  of  our  oneness  in  Christ, 
would  be  more  than  equivalent  to  doubling  the  present  missionary 
staff." 

The  loud  burst  of  applause  that  greeted  this  remark 
showed  how  far  it  was  from  being  a  mere  truism.  And 
the  applause  broke  out  again  when  the  Chairman  ex- 
pressed the  hope  that  animated  his  Commission,  that  one 
of  the  permanent  results  of  the  Conference  would  be  the 
foundation  of  some  central  board  or  "  simple  representa- 
tive International  Committee  "  (a  "  Hague  Tribunal  of 
missions  "  one  delegate  called  it),  which  should  give  body 


84  EDINBURGH  1910 

to  the  spirit  of  co-operation  that  more  and  more  animates 
Christians  to-day.  This  wish,  applauded  this  very  first  day 
of  the  Conference,  and  applauded  time  after  time  when  it 
was  again  expressed,1  was  one  that  lay  very  close  to  the 
heart  of  this  World  Missionary  Conference.  How  signally 
and  amid  what  a  scene  of  emotion  a  great  step  was  taken 
towards  its  fulfilment  shall  be  narrated  in  its  place. 

Co-operation  in  the  field  was  also  touched  upon  by 
one  or  two  speakers,  but  the  subject  was  generally  left 
to  the  discussion  on  the  Report  of  the  Commission 
on  Co-operation  and  the  Promotion  of  Unity.  It 
was  already  apparent  how  all  these  Commissions  were 
leading  up  to,  or  following  from,  each  other.  It  was 
not  accidental  that  this  first  Commission  found  itself 
bound  by  natural  ligaments  to  all  the  other  Commissions  ; 
for  the  carrying  of  the  Gospel  to  all  the  world  is  the  one 
goal ;  and  all  the  other  seven  Commissions  were,  as  will 
be  seen  when  we  come  to  each,  just  so  many  indis- 
pensable means  to  the  reaching  of  that  goal.  The 
work  of  this  first  day  of  the  Conference  was  thus  the 
natural  prelude  to  all  the  days  that  followed  it. 

5- 

This  fifth  impression,  then,  touched  upon  a  subject 
treated  of  by  the  Commission  on  the  Church  in  the 
Mission-field. 

"  The  evangelisation  of  the  world,  as  we  have  come  to  see  it  in- 
creasingly, is  not  chiefly  a  European  and  American  enterprise,  but 
an  Asiatic  or  African  enterprise.  Therefore  our  hearts  have  been 
filled  with  hopefulness  and  confidence  as  we  have  studied  the  reports 
from  all  over  the  world  showing  the  growing  evangelistic  and  mis- 
sionary spirit  in  the  Church  in  the  Mission-field.     Whatever  can  be 

1  As  for  example  by  the  distinguished  German  missionary  historian 
and  statesman,  Dr  Julius^  Richter,  when  as  Vice-Chairman  of  this 
Commission  he  summed  up  the  debate. 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD  85 

done  should  be  done  which  will  result  in  still  further  developing  the 
power  of  initiative,  of  aggressive  evangelism,  and  of  self-denying 
missionary  outreach  on  the  part  of  the  Christians  of  Asia  and 
Africa,  and  in  raising  up  an  army  of  well-qualified  native  evangelists 
and  leaders." 

The  debate  and  the  Report  both  contained  much  that 
was  stimulating  and  valuable  under  this  aspect.  The 
marvellous  example  of  the  Koreans — the  Moravians  of 
the  East — showed  what  may  be  expected  when  Eastern 
Christians  give  themselves  body  and  soul  to  God.  The 
Report  showed  that  there  are  the  very  greatest  differences 
in  the  extent  to  which  the  native  Churches  in  non- 
Christian  lands  are  animated  by  the  evangelistic  spirit 
of  the  gospel.  But  in  the  great  majority  of  the  reports, 
it  said,  the  note  is  one  of  great  hopefulness. 

The  brilliant  example  of  the  Uganda  Church  (the 
Korea  of  Africa)  and  several  other  bright  African  Churches 
was  further  recollected.  A  delegate — the  only  delegate 
— from  the  South  Sea  Islands  made  a  strong  impression 
when  he  told  of  the  Islanders  seeking  to  evangelise 
the  non-Christian  Orientals,  Chinese,  Indians,  Japanese, 
who  seek  those  Island  shores  ;  and  of  others  who  had 
crossed  vast  spaces  of  the  seas,  to  the  evangelisation  of 
New  Guinea — as  is  so  movingly  narrated  in  the  life  of 
Tamate.  A  delegate  from  the  United  Free  Church  of 
Scotland  Jewish  Mission  made  the  Conference  realise 
how  much  converted  Jews  had  done  and  might  do  for  the 
Kingdom  :  he  mentioned  Schereschewszky,  whose  Chinese 
version  of  the  Old  Testament  made  straight  from  the 
Hebrew  is  still  read  through  the  length  and  breadth 
of  China.  .  .  .  The  Church  in  Manchuria  was  alluded 
to  by  Dr  John  Ross  of  Manchuria  as  one  that  lived  on 
the  principle  "  freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give,"  and 
averred  that  of  the  40,000  baptized  Manchurians  not 
more  than  100  had  come  in  through  the  sole  means  of 


86  EDINBURGH  1910 

the  foreign  missionary.  .  .  .  The  growing  spirit  of 
independence  in  the  Japanese  and  Chinese  Churches  was 
also  (the  Conference  was  told)  working  out  in  the  direction 
of  self-propagation.  The  recent  volunteering  of  the  501 
young  Chinese  students  for  active  service  has  already 
been  alluded  to.    .    .    . 

This  being  so,  it  was  not  wonderful  that  the  discussions 
about  the  raising  up  and  training  and  support  of  native 
evangelists  produced  some  good  speeches.  In  regard  to 
their  training,  Mr  D.  E.  Hoste,  one  of  the  "Cambridge 
Seven  "  and  now  Field-Director  of  the  China  Inland 
Mission — a  Mission  which  has  a  very  good  right  to  speak 
authoritatively  on  the  subject — deprecated  "  laying 
hands  "  on  any  man  just  because  "  a  worker  "  was 
needed — rather  should  a  Mission  go  without,  until  the 
man  with  a  call  to  the  work  was  found.  Bishop  Roots 
of  Hankow  provoked  a  strong  outburst  of  applause 
by  the  following  words  : 

"  The  bitterest  complaint  which  I  ever  heard  against  the  mis- 
sionary cause  was  that  of  a  young  Chinaman,  who  said,  '  The 
missionaries  don't  want  the  Chinese  to  acquire  the  ability  which 
would  enable  them  to  lead  the  Chinese  Church  ! '  Now  we  know 
that  that  charge  is  not  true  in  our  hearts,  but," 

said  the  Bishop,  and  this  was  what  brought  out  the 
applause, 

"  we  need  to  see  to  it  that  it  is  also  not  true  in  the  policy  and 
administration  of  our  mission" 

a  distinction  with  a  difference  that  went  home  to  the  men 
in  the  Hall  who  had  practical  knowledge  of  mission- 
work  ! 

And,  finally,  there  was  an  interesting  discussion  on  the 
knotty  point,  "  How  should  such  workers  be  paid  ?  " 
And  it  was  highly  instructive  to  see  the  differences  of 
opinion,  and  of  experience  also,  which  this  subject  brought 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   87 

out.  The  deeply  respected  Korean  delegate  had  already 
testified  to  his  thankfulness  that  the  missionaries  had 
left  the  whole  burden  on  the  native  Church.  Dr  Ross 
of  Manchuria,  on  the  other  hand,  from  next  door  to  Korea 
so  to  speak,  was  so  impressed  with  the  need  of  help 
from  any  or  every  quarter  that  he  hinted  he  would 
welcome  as  much  foreign  money  as  he  could  get  !  He 
said  that  when  once  it  was  given  to  God  money  ceased 
to  be  native  or  foreign. 

A  delegate  from  South  India  bluntly  endorsed  this 
view  on  the  empirical  ground  of  sheer  necessity.  Dr 
Gibson  of  China  also  had  no  scruple  of  paying  native 
teachers  with  foreign  money,  but  said  that  in  Fukien 
the  native  Church  really  bore  80  per  cent,  of  local  expenses, 
and  that  the  finding  of  men,  not  money,  constituted  beyond 
all  question  the  real  problem  of  problems.  A  delegate 
from  Japan  said  that  to  stop  foreign  contributions 
would  injure  both  the  Japanese,  by  curtailing  work 
in  Japan,  and  the  Western  Church,  by  curtailing  the 
blessings  that  they  gained  by  liberality.  And  Dr 
Eugene  Stock  felt  the  solution  was  that  all  European 
money  should  be  pooled,  as  it  were,  with  the  local  funds 
and  administered  by  the  local  Church  as  one  Church- 
fund.  .  .  .  This  vital  topic  was  continued  on  the 
morrow. 


6. 

"  The  last  impression  we  shall  mention  is  .  .  .  the  conviction 
that  the  most  crucial  problem  in  relation  to  evangelising  the 
world  is  the  state  of  ike  Church  in  the  Christian  countries.  We 
are  frank  to  concede  that  it  is  futile  to  talk  about  making 
Christ  known  to  the  world  in  this  generation  or  any  generation 
unless  there  be  a  great  expansion  of  vitality  in  the  members 
of  the  Churches  of  Christendom.  .  .  .  We  look  forward, 
therefore,    with   great   eagerness    to   the   deliberations   of    this 


88  EDINBURGH  1910 

Conference  upon  the  Report  of  the  Commission  on  the  '  Home 
Base.'     Our  task  is  hopeless  unless  their  task  is  well  done. 

"  Nothing  less  than  a  Church  tremendously  in  earnest  can 
evangelise  the  non-Christian  world  "  (Report). 

For  the  most  part  the  discussion  under  this  head  was 
postponed  to  the  debate  on  the  Report  of  Commission  on 
the  Home-Base,  which  very  significantly  was  put  down 
for  the  last  day  of  the  Conference ;  for  in  the  last  analysis 
the  success  of  this  enterprise  depends  on  the  extent  to 
which  the  Church  of  Christ  rises  to  the  height  of  her 
calling  and  is  inspired  with  the  very  spirit  of  her  Divine 
Lord. 

But  there  are  certain  words  of  the  Report  so  weighty, 
so  intense  with  impassioned  energy,  that  it  would  be  a 
grievous  loss  not  to  set  them  down  here.  And  the  reader 
who  has  been  impressed  by  the  things  brought  to  his 
notice  in  this  chapter  is  besought  to  resist  that  inclina- 
tion of  the  flesh  to  omit  lengthy  quotations,  and  to  read 
this  one  with  the  intensest  concentration  and  care.  It 
will  repay  him.  It  will  remind  him  of  an  aphorism 
uttered  some  years  ago,  "  We  often  say,  unless  we 
evangelise  the  masses,  they  cannot  be  saved.  We  need 
to  learn  that  unless  we  evangelise  the  masses — we  cannot 
be  saved  !  " 

This  then  is  the  closing  appeal  of  the  Report,  which  it 
takes  little  higher  critical  acumen  to  ascribe  to  the 
Chairman  of  the  Commission  and  of  the  Conference 
himself : — 

"  For  the  Church  not  to  rise  to  the  present  situation 
and  meet  the  present  opportunity  will  result  in 
hardening  the  minds  and  hearts  of  its  members  and 
making  them  unresponsive  to  God.  If  the  situation 
now  confronting  the  Church  throughout  the  world 
does  not  move  to  larger  consecration  and  prompt 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   89 

and  aggressive  effort,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  what 
more  God  could  do  to  move  the  Church,  unless  it  be 
to  bring  upon  it  some  great  calamity.  ...  It  is 
an  inexorable  law  of  Christianity  that  no  Christian 
can  keep  spiritual  life  and  blessing  to  himself,  but 
must  communicate  to  those  in  need. 

"  The  apologetic  value  and  influence  of  a  widespread, 
thorough,  and  triumphant  propagation  of  the  Gospel 
should  also  be  emphasised.  In  Christian  lands  many 
have  lost  faith  in  Christianity  as  a  power  to  uplift 
mankind.  .  .  .  The  foreign  missionary  propaganda 
furnishes  from  the  difficult  fields  of  the  non-Christian 
world  evidence  showing  the  ability  of  the  Christian 
religion  to  transform  men  individually,  to  elevate 
communities  socially,  and  to  win  whole  nations. 

"  The  only  thing  which  will  save  the  Church  from 
the  imminent  perils  of  growing  luxury  and  materialism, 
is  the  putting  forth  of  all  its  powers  on  behalf  of  the 
world  without  Christ.  Times  of  material  prosperity 
have  ever  been  the  times  of  greatest  danger  to 
Christianity.  The  Church  needs  a  supreme  world- 
purpose — a  gigantic  task,  something  which  will  call 
out  all  its  energies,  something  too  great  for  man  to 
accomplish,  and,  therefore,  something  which  will 
throw  the  Church  back  upon  God  Himself.  This 
desideratum  is  afforded  by  the  present  world-wide 
missionary  opportunity  and  responsibility.  To  lay 
hold  in  particular  of  the  lives  of  the  strongest  young 
men  and  young  women,  the  Church  must  offer  them 
some  such  masterful  mission  as  this.  May  it  not  be 
that  God  designs  that  the  baffling  problems  which 
confront  Christianity  in  the  non-Christian  world  shall 
constitute  the  battleground  for  disciplining  the 
faith  and  strengthening  the  character  of  His  followers? 
To  preserve  the  pure  faith  of  Christianity,  a  world- 


90  EDINBURGH  1910 

wide  plan  and  conquest  are  necessary.  This  lesson  is 
convincingly  taught  on  the  pages  of  Church  history. 
The  concern  of  Christians  to-day  should  not  be  lest 
non-Christian  peoples  refuse  to  receive  Christ,  but 
lest  they,  in  failing  to  communicate  Him,  will  them- 
selves lose  Him  ! 

"  A  programme  literally  world-wide  in  its  scope  is 
indispensable  to  enrich  and  complete  the  Church. 
Jesus  Christ  must  have  all  the  races  and  all  the  nations 
through  which  to  make  known  fully  His  excellences 
and  to  communicate  adequately  His  power.  ...  It 
will  be  impossible  to  plan  and  wage  a  world-wide 
campaign  without  being  enlarged  by  the  very  purpose 
itself.  The  life  of  the  Church  depends  upon  its  being 
missionary.  Revivals  of  missionary  devotion  and  of 
spiritual  life  have  ever  gone  hand  in  hand.  The  mis- 
sionary activities  of  the  Church  are  the  circulation 
of  its  blood,  which  would  lose  its  vital  power  if  it 
never  flowed  to  the  extremities.  .  .  . 

"  Moreover,  to  have  God  manifest  mightily  His 
power  in  the  Home  Church  so  that  it  may  be  able  to 
grapple  successfully  with  the  problems  at  its  own 
doors,  it  is  essential  that  the  Church  give  itself  in  a 
larger  way  to  the  carrying  out  of  His  missionary 
purposes.  Is  it  not  true  that  when  this  main  purpose 
is  forgotten  or  subordinated,  a  paralysis  comes  upon 
the  Church,  incapacitating  it  for  other  efforts  ? 
World-evangelisation  is  essential  to  Christian  conquest 
at  home.  The  only  faith  which  will  conquer  Europe 
and  America  is  the  faith  heroic  and  vigorous  enough 
to  subdue  the  peoples  of  the  non-Christian  world  !     *» 

"  Christ  emphasised  that  the  mightiest  apologetic 
with  which  to  convince  the  non-Christian  world  of  His 
divine  character  and  claims  would  be  the  oneness  of 
His  disciples.     Experience  has  already  shown  that 


THE  GOSPEL  TO  NON-CHRISTIAN  WORLD   91 

by  far  the  most  hopeful  way  of  hastening  the  realisa-  S 
Hon  of  true  and  triumphant  Christian  unity  is  through 
the  enterprise  of  carrying  the  Gospel  to  the  non- 
Christian  world.  Who  can  measure  the  federative 
and  unifying  influence  of  foreign  missions  ?  No 
problem  less  colossal  and  less  bafflingly  difficult  will 
so  reveal  to  the  Christians  of  to-day  the  sinfulness  of 
their  divisions,  and  so  convince  them  of  the  necessity 
of  concerted  effort  as  actually  to  draw  them  together 
in  answer  to  the  intercession  of  their  common  and 
divine  Lord." 

Finally,  having  described  this  tremendous  five-fold 
result  that  will  surely  be  the  reward  of  faithfulness, 
the  eloquent  and  pleading  appeal  thus  concludes  : — 

"  The  cumulative  and  crowning  consideration 
calling  the  Church  to  undertake  promptly  and  to 
carry  forward  earnestly  and  thoroughly  a  campaign 
to  take  the  Gospel  to  all  the  non-Christian  world  is 
seen  in  the  coincidence  of  the  series  of  convincing 
facts  and  providences  which  have  been  summarised 
in  this  survey.  Never  before  have  such  facts  and 
movements  synchronised.  .  .  .  Surely  all  these  facts 
and  factors,  together  with  the  perils  and  possibilities 
of  the  Home  Church  as  determined  by  its  attitude 
at  such  a  time  and  in  face  of  such  an  opportunity, 
constitute  a  conjunction  brought  about  by  the  hand 
of  the  Living  God,  and  should  be  regarded  by  the 
Christian  Church  as  an  irresistible  mandate. 

"  Well  may  the  leaders  and  members  of  the  Church 
reflect  on  the  awful  seriousness  of  the  simple  fact  that 
opportunities  pass.  It  must  use  them  or  lose  them. 
It  cannot  play  with  them  or  procrastinate  to  debate 
whether  or  not  to  improve  them.  Doors  open  and 
doors  shut  again.     Time  presses.      '  The  living,  the 


92  EDINBURGH  1910 

living,  he  shall  praise  Thee.'     It  is  the  day  of  God's 
power.     Shall  His  people  be  willing  ?  " 

These  are  surely  great,  very  great  words.  Well 
were  it  for  the  Church  of  God  were  her  members  to  get 
these  words  by  heart,  or  the  meaning  of  them.  Surely 
it  would  be  for  her  healing  !  Surely  they  are  the  things 
that  belong  to  her  peace  ! 

The  Chairman  of  this  Commission  closed  his  recital 
of  their  outstanding  convictions  by  a  recurrence  to  that 
tremendous  word  that  had  been  uttered  by  the  dis- 
tinguished speaker  of  the  night  before,  and  had  evidently 
fallen  with  impressive  and  solemnising  force  on  his  own 
ears,  as  it  had  on  the  ears  of  all.     "  The  power,"  he  cried, 

"  the  power  is  in  this  room,  under  God,  to  influence  the  hosts 
of  Christendom  to  enter  into  the  realisation  of  the  sublime  hope 
expressed  by  the  speaker  last  evening,  that  before  the  eyes  of  some 
of  us  shall  close  in  death,  the  opportunity  at  least  may  be  given 
to  all  people  throughout  the  non-Christian  world  to  know  and  to 
accept,  if  they  will,  the  living  Christ !  " 

On  this  day,  the  prayer  hour,  the  "  solemn  central  act 
of  the  day's  proceedings,"  was  passed  mostly  in  perfect 
silence.  Only  Silence  was  eloquent  enough  in  the  face 
of  the  impressions  of  that  day.  Let  the  conclusion  of 
this  chapter,  then,  following  immediately  on  the  above 
words,  stand  for  this  same  silence  of  intercession  and 
of  consecration. 


CHAPTER  vrri 

"  THE  CHURCH   ON   THE   MISSION-FIELD  " 

On  the  first  day  the  delegates  had  surveyed  the 
task.  They  turned  from  that,  on  the  morning  of 
the  second,  to  the  one  thing  on  earth  that  suggested  the 
hope  of  its  possibility. 

The  public  is  not  even  aware  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  "  the  Church  on  the  Mission  Field."  The  man  in  the 
street,  sure  of  everything,  is  sure  there  is  not.  Even  the 
statesman  whose  business  it  is  to  be  conversant  with 
foreign  affairs,  has  probably  overlooked  it. 

They  are  hardly  to  be  blamed.  There  is  another  who 
apparently  has  had  some  difficulty  in  fully  realising  its 
existence — the  missionary. 

With  him  it  has  been  as  with  one  who  has  striven, 
long  and  intensely,  after  some  great  object  dearly  desired, 
hardly  hoped  for  ;  and  then,  when  it  comes  to  him,  cannot 
see  that  it  has  come.  But  such  a  one,  when  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  truth  dawns  on  him,  rejoices  with  great  joy. 
For  the  missionary,  when  once  he  fairly,  even  if  imper- 
fectly, realises  that  the  Church  in  the  mission-field  is, 
finds  in  this  the  pledge  of  final  victory.  So,  the  Apostle 
on  Patmos,  looking  on  the  infant  "  Church  in  the  Roman 
Empire,"  anticipated  by  two  centuries  the  conviction 
of  Constantine,  that  before  that  Church  heathenism  was 
doomed.  With  the  faith  which,  with  absolute  soberness, 
treats  the  future  tense  as  a  perfect,  he  had  already 
exclaimed  Vicisti,  Galilcee  before  the  world  was  even 
aware  of  the  new  organism  that  had  been  born  into  it. 


94  EDINBURGH  1910 

It  was  not  so  much  prophecy  as  perfected  insight  into 
the  significance  of  present  facts. 

I. 

The  preparatory  work  done  in  connection  with  this 
Commission  must  have  helped  many  of  its  two  hundred 
missionary  correspondents  to  realise  this  fact  of  the 
Church  on  the  Mission-Field.  There,  on  the  table  of  the 
Conference,  lay  the  correspondence  ;  one  volume  from 
Japan,  three  volumes  in  yellow  from  China,  three  in  red 
from  India,  one  in  green  from  Mohammedan  countries, 
and  one  from  the  continent  of  Africa.  "  In  difficulty 
and  suffering,"  the  Conference  was  told,  "some  of  that 
correspondence  had  been  written  ;  by  one  man  at  the 
death-bed  of  his  wife  ;  by  another  on  his  own," — to 
him,  perhaps,  a  Patmos  on  which  he  saw  into  the  reality 
of  things.  The  compilation  of  the  Report  had  evidently 
deepened  the  sense  of  realisation  on  the  part  of  the 
Commission.  The  reading  and  discussion  of  it  com- 
municated that  sense  to  the  Conference  at  large.  And 
the  Report  itself,  now  published,  establishes  the  fact 
for  all  who  care  to  know  the  truth. 

And  what  is  the  truth  ?  It  is  the  existence  of  the 
Church  on  the  Mission-Field.  This  fact,  of  literally 
incalculable  potentiality  is  thus  expressed  by  the  Com- 
mission at  the  outset  of  their  Report  : — 

"  The  Church  on  which  we  report  presents  itself  no  longer  as  an 
inspiring  but  distant  ideal,  nor  even  as  a  tender  plant  or  a  young 
child,  appealing  to  our  compassion  and  nurturing  care.  We  see 
it  now  an  actual  Church  in  being,  strongly  rooted,  and  fruitful  in 
many  lands.  The  child  has,  in  many  places,  reached,  and  in  others 
is  fast  reaching  maturity,  and  is  now  both  fitted  and  willing,  perhaps 
in  a  few  cases  too  eager,  to  take  upon  itself  its  full  burden  of  respon- 
sibility and  service." 

"  Even  where  it  is  known,  its  extent  and  significance/' 
the  Report  continues,  "  are  very  much  under-estimated." 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  95 

And  Dr  Gibson,  the  Chairman  of  the  Commission,  re- 
minded the  Conference,  in  presenting  the  Report,  that  the 
Christians  on  the  mission  field  are  not  separate  particles 
of  inorganic  matter,  as  if  the  results  of  missions  could  be 
estimated  by  weighing  these  separate  particles  against 
the  enormous  mass  of  paganism  from  which  they  have 
been  separated.  That  view  he  took  to  be  utterly  wrong, 
and  declared  that  at  this  moment  the  recognition  of 
how  wrong  it  is  is  one  of  the  vital  issues  of  mission  work. 
What  is  meant  by  the  organisation  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  the  mission  field  "  is  the  drawing  together  of 
life  to  life  in  its  highest  form,  spiritual  life,  life  in  its 
highest  potency."  "  We  all  know  "  (he  said),  "  how  science 
is  beginning  to  teach  us  how  even  very  obscure  and  very 
minute  forms  of  life  are,  because  of  their  life,  of  enormous 
potency  in  their  aggregate  and  in  their  united  working ; 
and  so  it  is  that  we  desire  the  Conference  to  recognise 
the  enormous  force  that  exists  now  established  in  the 
very  heart  of  the  pagan  world,  in  the  young  Christian 
Church  which  missions  have  founded,  but  which  is  itself 
now  the  great  Mission  to  the  non-Christian  world/' 
The  words  are  those  of  a  missionary-statesman  of  the 
Church  in  the  Far  East,  at  the  end  of  a  century  of  mission- 
ary enterprise.  One  remembers  again  with  a  thrill, 
"  the  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,"  and  the  present 
insight  of  him  who  "  saw  "  on  Patmos,  at  the  end  of 
the  first  century  of  our  era. 
Or  again, 

"  You  have  now  what  we  begin  to  call  not  a  little  but  a  great 
Church  in  the  mission  field.  The  stage  is  being  gradually  reached, 
but  we  think  it  ought  to  be  now  somewhat  suddenly  and  very 
definitely,  with  great  thankfulness  to  God,  fully  recognised.  .  .  . 
I  venture  to  say  that  the  situation  is  not  generally  understood  even 
by  Christian  missionaries  and  still  less  by  those  that  look  on  from 
without." 


96  EDINBURGH  1910 

Such  are  the  words  in  which  a  world-fact  of  the  most 
solemn  import  and  significance  was  announced  to  the 
Conference,  and  thereby  to  the  Church  at  home,  the 
fruit  of  its  toil  and  its  sacrifice  ;  to  those  that  "  believe 
in  foreign  missions,"  and  those  that  do  not  believe  in 
foreign  missions  ;  to  the  statesman  ;  to  the  public  ; 
to  the  man  in  the  street.  For  in  very  truth  it  con- 
cerns each  of  them  !  .  .  .  Was  the  Conference  in  error 
when  to  its  eyes  very  gradually  dawned  the  vision  of 
the  stone  cut  out  without  hands  that  became  a  great 
mountain  and  filled  the  whole  earth  ?  That  vision  had 
surely  the  highest  authority.  Who  was  it  who  saw  a 
picture  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  in  one  small  organism 
which  became  the  greatest  among  herbs,  a  tree  in  the 
branches  of  which  the  birds  of  the  air  came  and  lodged. 

The  entire  Report,  in  fact,  is  the  proof  of  the  fact  now 
asserted.  And  the  discussion  on  the  Report  merely 
underscored  the  written  proof.  The  debate  on  this  day 
reached  as  high  a  level  as  at  any  time  at  the  Conference, 
for  the  men  who  were  speaking  were  the  very  men 
who  had  the  firsthand  knowledge  of  the  fact.  The 
Conference  heard  of  a  body  of  1,925,205  registered 
communicants  in  the  mission-lands  of  Asia,  Africa,  and 
other  parts  of  the  world  :  of  Churches  in  Japan  with  their 
constitutions  and  charters ;  of  the  self-supporting  and 
self-propagating  churches  in  Korea  and  in  Manchuria. 
It  listened  to  a  Chinese  delegate,  Ch'eng  Ching-Yi, 
claiming  that  the  time  had  come  when  China  should 
range  itself  with  Japan  in  this  matter ;  and  it  assented 
to  his  words  with  emphatic  applause.  It  realised  that  in 
negro  Africa  the  same  phenomena  are  being  seen — a 
Church  of  Uganda  so  independent  in  its  working  that  the 
responsible  secretary  of  the  society  in  London  could 
confess  he  knew  little  about  the  details  of  its  finance  ; 
Churches  in  Nigeria,  Sierra  Leone,  Livingstonia,  Blantyre, 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  97 

Madagascar  ;  and  to  crown  all  it  heard  of  a  Church  in 
those  South  Sea  Islands,  which  were  nearly  the  earliest 
object  of  the  modern  missionary  quest,  and  for  which 
the  martyr  missionaries  shed  their  blood  (with  a  Home 
Church  in  the  distance,  grudging  and  unconvinced)  : — 
those  islands,  then  cannibal,  now  Christian,  might  them- 
selves with  perfect  justice  claim  to  be  a  "  Home  Church," 
for  they  have  their  "  home  mission  "  to  the  Chinese 
coolies  indentured  for  work  in  their  island  plantations, 
and  their  "foreign  mission"  to  far-off  lands  across  the  S 
southern  sea  !  From  a  training-college  in  Mabia  some 
fifty-four  Samoans,  Tokelan,  and  Ellice  islanders  have 
gone  to  New  Guinea,  that  savage  isle,  successors  of  those 
first  three  who,  in  1883,  sailed  to  be  the  colleagues  of 
Tamate,  his  fellow-missionaries  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
Chalmers  the  Scotsman  is  not  the  only  martyr  of  New 
Guinea.  The  Polynesian  is  there  too.  In  Papua  sleep 
saints  from  Scotland  and  from  Samoa ;  in  Papua 
islanders  from  Stevenson's  Samoa  sleep  their  last  sleep 
with  their  Tamate,  far  away  from  his  Scotland  and  their 
Samoa  across  the  sea. 

Such  is  the  new  vital  organism  with  which  the  world 
has  henceforth  to  reckon — the  Church  on  the  Mission- 
Field.  In  this  chapter  it  will  be  attempted  merely 
to  illustrate  this  central  fact  by  touching  upon  points 
in  the  debate,  and  in  the  Report  that  cast  the  most  light 
upon  it. 

2. 

Building  up  the  Individual  Life 

*'.  The  supreme  and  ultimate  object  of  edification  is 
the  development  of  character,"  said  Bishop  Lambuth, 
the  Vice-Chairman  of  the  Commission,  later  on  in  the 
day  ;    "  and  to  secure  the  most  effective  activity  upon 

G 


98  EDINBURGH  1910 

the  part  of  the  Church  in  the  mission  field.  .  .  .  But 
corporate  life  is  made  up  of  individual  life,  and  the  former 
is  not  stronger  than  the  integrity  of  the  units  which  make 
it  up."  This  sturdy  individualism,  which  every  high  social 
doctrine  must,  if  it  is  worth  anything,  have  at  its  core, 
had  been  equally  strongly  stated  by  Robert  Speer  the 
day  before,  when  he  said — 

"  But  how  can  society  be  built  except  by  men  ?  It  is  as  strong 
as  the  convictions  of  individual  men  are  strong.  We  cannot  build 
a  better  world  than  we  can  make  out  of  the  goodness  of  the  men 
who  compose  that  world,  and  in  the  end  our  efforts  to  mould 
society  resolve  themselves  into  the  effort  to  mould  and  fashion 
the  individual  men  who  compose  that  society.  These  two  things 
we  must  combine.  ...  In  this  missionary  enterprise  as  we  con- 
stitute it  we  are  bound  to  set  in  the  foreground  the  primary  purpose 
of  making  Jesus  Christ  known  to  His  sheep  whom  He  knows  one 
by  one  by  name." 

Much,  therefore,  of  great  general  interest,  as  well  as  of 
technical  importance  to  workers  abroad,  is  found  in  the 
Report,  and  was  said  at  the  discussion  upon  this  primary 
and  fundamental  question ;  aspects  of  which  are  the 
sifting  and  the  instruction  of  candidates  for  baptism, 
and  the  watching,  helping  and  teaching  of  the  newly- 
baptised. 

The  Korean,  Yun  Chi-Ho,  one  look  at  whom  ensured 
the  respect  for  him  which  his  record  deserved,  had  the 
day  before  alluded  to  the  increased  responsibility,  which 
the  extraordinary  Christward  movement  in  his  country 
has  cast  on  the  "  Church  at  home."  "  The  rapid  increase 
of  converts  is  a  danger."  Dr  Gibson,  evidently  struck 
by  the  remark,  alluded  to  it  on  this  morning.  He  showed 
clearly  how  this  was  so  :  such  an  increase  of  converts 
is  undoubtedly  a  great  joy,  but  it  is  a  joy  that  brings  a 
great  responsibility  with  it,  the  responsibility  of  "  feed- 
ing My  sheep."    Therefore,  in  the  interest  of  the  young 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD    99 

Church  on  the  mission-field,  the  Church  at  home  needs 
to  send  more  missionaries  to  do  this  shepherd-work. 

That  success  is  attending  their  efforts  at  character- 
building  the  world  over  was  proved  up  to  the  hilt  in  the 
Report.  The  very  emphasis  placed  on  the  exceptions 
proves  the  rule.  The  very  disappointment  caused  by 
those  exceptions  shows  what  is  expected.  The  Vice-Chair- 
man of  the  Commission  summed  up  to  the  Conference 
the  impressions  relating  to  this  point,  which  had  been 
made  on  the  Commission  by  those  nine  volumes  of 
correspondence  lying  there  on  the  Conference  table ; 
and  described  some  of  the  fruit  of  the  Gospel  as  manifested 
by  the  lives  of  the  converts  on  the  field.  First,  Fear  cast 
out.  Second,  Speech  made  pure.  Third,  Truthfulness. 
Fourth,  Family  Prayer — the  sheet-anchor  of  the  Christian 
home  on  the  mission-field.  .  .  . 

(Said  a  Korean  missionary  on  this  point : 

"  Previous  to  the  Pentecostal  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon 
the  Church  of  Korea  in  1897,  prayer  was  regarded  largely  as  a 
precious  privilege.  .  .  .  The  Korean  Christian  now  regards  it  as  a 
primary  method  of  work  for  our  Lord.") 

Fifth,  Liberality.  He  told  the  Conference  of  Chinese 
schoolboys  denying  themselves  a  Sunday  mid-day  meal, 
in  order  to  save  a  few  coppers  cash  for  evangelistic  work  ; 
and  converts  from  cannibalism  in  the  New  Hebrides 
giving  their  crop  of  arrowroot  for  the  publication  of  their 
New  Testament.  Korean  Christians  in  a  single  year 
contributed  out  of  their  poverty  £25,000  for  the  further- 
ance of  the  Gospel,  which,  translated  into  the  terms 
of  the  wages  of  the  West,  would  equal  £175,000  ! — Sixth, 
Fervent  evangelism.  Seventh,  the  Martyr  Spirit  under 
persecution.  ...  He  described,  among  the  many, 
Um-Chang,  sixty-seven  years  old,  beset  on  every  side  by 
murderous  fellows  who  sought  his  life  but  offered  to  spare 


100  EDINBURGH  1910 

it  if  he  would  but  deny  his  Lord.  He  could  not.  "  And 
while  their  dull  rusty  knives  were  buried  in  his  quivering 
flesh  the  old  man  on  his  knees  could  be  heard  saying, 
'  Father,  forgive  !  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.' ' 
Was  this  the  same  Chang,  one  wonders,  as  the  one 
mentioned  in  the  Report,  whose  nephew  years  later 
showed  yet  another  "  fruit  "  of  the  Church  on  the  mission- 
field  ?  For  he  himself  had,  so  to  speak,  to  answer  that 
prayer  of  his  old  relative  for  the  forgiveness  of  those 
murderers.     "  At  one  of  the  meetings,"  says  the  Report, 

"  this  evangelist,  in  a  moment  of  profound  spiritual  emotion, 
declared  that  he  had  for  the  first  time  come  to  know  the  Lord. 
1  Do  you  forgive  your  enemies  ?  '  he  was  asked  by  a  Chinese 
pastor.  For  a  moment  this  was  more  than  he  could  promise. 
A  Chinese  friend  arose  and  went  to  his  side,  saying  to  him,  '  I 
want  to  help  you  ;  I  will  do  all  I  can  to  help  you.  Forgive  them  !  ' 
Still  he  could  not  promise,  and  many  silent  prayers  were  offered 
for  him.  At  last  he  said  very  quietly,  '  I  forgive  them.  Pray 
for  these  men,  all  of  you,  that  they  may  be  saved  ;  and  pray  for 
me  that  I  may  be  given  the  victory  over  myself  and  them.  I  shall 
first  write  and  tell  them  of  my  forgiveness  and  hopes,  and  then  at 
the  earliest  opportunity  visit  them,  and  plead  with  them  to  repent 
and  be  saved.' 

"  It  may  seem  little  that  a  Christian  man  should  abandon  the 
thought  of  taking  a  bloody  revenge  ;  but  he  was  not  only  giving 
up  the  impulse  of  present  passion,  but  breaking  with  the  traditions 
of  his  race,  and  the  teachings  of  a  lifetime." 

Such  are  some  of  the  results  of  the  edification  of  the 
individual  life  in  the  Church  on  the  mission  field. 


3- 

The  Building  up  of  the  Community 

There  were  unfolded  before  the  Conference  a  number  of 
the  varied  methods  that  are  being  used  for  the  corporate 
upbuilding  of  the  Christian  communities  on  the  mission 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  101 

field.  The  services  and  meetings  of  the  full,  happy, 
Christian  Sunday  (reminding  one  of  Justin  Martyr's 
description  of  the  "  Day  of  the  Sun  "  in  the  reign  of  the 
Emperor  Antoninus,  and  the  way  it  was  kept  by  those 
second-century  Christians),  worship  without  tedium, 
instruction  with  the  appetite  for  it;  day-schools,  boarding- 
schools  and  hostels  ;  family  worship  and  village  meetings  ; 
conferences  for  workers  and  leaders ;  Sunday-schools — 
India  in  1908  had  over  half-a-million  officers,  teachers 
and  scholars,  with  Japan  close  behind  ;  young  people's 
societies  ;  visitation  of  homes  and  work  for  the  women 
of  the  Church ;  and  the  definite  training  of  workers  for 
service  and  the  ordained  ministry.  .  .  .  An  illuminating 
touch  was  this  one,  from  China  : — 

"  In  view  of  the  difficulty  that  the  Chinese  experience  in  getting 
quiet  for  prayer  in  their  own  homes,  a  room  has  been  set  apart 
for  prayer  in  some  stations.  Those  attending  do  not  necessarily 
pray  audibly,  nor  is  there  any  stated  leader,  and  all  are  free  to 
come  and  go  as  their  duties  demand.  This  method  has  proved  a 
means  of  real  blessing." 

There  was  another  side  to  this,  a  necessary  yet  painful 
side  :  discipline.  The  spirit  in  which  this  is  dealt  was 
sufficiently  shown  by  the  way  the  Chairman  of  the 
Commission  introduced  it, — there  was  tenderness  in  the 
rugged  face  and  the  harsh,  kindly  voice  as  he  showed  how 
those  Christians  stand  up  without  any  of  the  help  given 
by  hereditary  examples  and  traditions  and  a  Christian 
atmosphere  :  how  they  stand  up  (to  the  eye  of  flesh) 
alone,  to  face  an  un-Christian  world.  Could  we  wonder 
if  they  stumble  and  fall  ?  It  should  be  recognised  then 
that  this  matter  of  Church  discipline  is  exercised  not  as  a 
harsh  matter  of  judicial  proceeding,  but  rather  as  a 
tender,  watchful,  vigilant  care.  Another  very  important 
point  was  this  : — discipline  is  not  to  be  exercised  always 


102  EDINBURGH  1910 

by  the  foreign  missionary.     There  was  an  illuminating 
sentence  about  this  in  the  Report, 

"  We  note  evidence  to  the  effect  that  decisions  arrived  at  in  these 
[indigenous]  meetings  carry  a  weight  which  does  not  in  the  same 
degree  attach  to  the  verdict  of  the  missionary-in-charge,  or  of  a 
council  mainly  European.  In  a  few  cases  we  notice  that  it  is 
still  the  European  missionary  who  is  the  sole  officer  of  discipline, 
and  perhaps  this  is  inevitable  in  the  earliest  days  of  a  mission. 
Plainly,  however,  it  ought  never  to  be  regarded  as  a  permanent 
feature,  or  be  long  acquiesced  in.  If  we,  as  foreigners,  discipline 
the  unruly,  we  may  edify  the  individual,  but  we  fail  to  edify  the 
community,  for  we  destroy  the  sense  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
community  to  guard  its  own  morality." 

Immense  social  difficulties  that  are  still  real  problems 
within  the  Church  or  the  mission-field,  such  as  the  matter 
of  ancestor-worship,  of  caste,  of  polygamy,  had  been 
dealt  with  very  fully  in  the  Report.  Curiously  enough 
they  hardly  came  up  at  all  in  the  discussion.  Just  twice 
they  came  to  the  surface,  and  each  time  the  exceptionally 
moved  tone  of  the  speaker's  voice  indicated  the  travail 
in  which  the  Church  still  is  with  these  painfully  difficult 
questions.1 

1  Late  in  the  debate  a  Japanese  delegate  rose,  Dr  T.  Harada,  the 
great  Neesima's  successor  as  President  of  the  famous  Doshisha  College, 
and  in  an  admirable  speech  delivered  in  English  pled  for  patience  in 
dealing  with  caste.  The  problem  would  be  gradually  solved  as  the 
Indian  Church  realised  the  significance  of  her  own  faith.  "  We  want 
faith  in  God  !  Our  system  and  your  system  are  not  necessarily  the 
perfect  or  final  type  of  Christianity,  and  therefore  in  the  expressions 
of  faith,  in  non-Christian  lands,  we  must  be  patient,  we  must  wait  for 
the  time  of  the  real  expression  of  their  spiritual  experience,  and  that 
is  important  not  only  for  the  sake  of  the  Churches  in  non-Christian 
lands,  but  I  think  it  is  important  for  the  sake  of  the  mother-Churches, 
because  in  those  and  only  those  our  Lord's  full  personality  will  be 
glorified  and  revealed  in  all  the  world." 

Golden  words  !  It  was  a  comment  on  the  truth  of  the  last  sentences, 
that  what  elicited  this  gem  was  just  the  statement  of  a  difficulty  with 
which  a  sister-Church  (in  India)  was  wrestling. 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  103 

If,  then,  it  was  the  Church  in  the  mission-field  that  more 
and  more  must  be  tended,  fed,  administered,  disciplined, 
and  moulded  by  its  own  leaders,  palpably  the  supreme 
work  of  the  missionary  must  be  the  training  of  those 
leaders,  those  workers  and  ministers  of  religion,  who  are 
to  perform  all  these  functions.  On  this  aspect  much 
had  been  set  forth  in  this  Report,  and  much  was  added 
in  the  discussion.  Many  points  of  great  importance  were 
made  which  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  mention  here  : 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  necessity  of  separating  between 
the  curricula  of  simple  workers  and  of  those  who  are 
to  lead  the  life  and  thought  of  the  whole  community  ; 
the  need  of  familiarising  the  students  with  the  dominant 
faiths  and  philosophies  of  the  land;  the  need  of 
studying  the  thought-idiom  of  the  people  in  the  theo- 
logy that  is  taught  and  the  text-books  that  are 
written.  (An  American  delegate  "was  surprised  and 
saddened  to  see  how  much  time  was  consumed  in  the 
training  of  the  men  in  strictly  denominational  lines ;  " 
and  the  teaching  of  that  text-book  beloved  of  Cambridge 
["England"  !],  Paley's  "Christian  Evidences,"  seemed 
to  him  a  thing  to  be  deplored.  While  the  Bishop  of 
Birmingham  by  voice,  face,  and  gesture  tried  to  make  a 
sympathising  audience  share  the  horror  with  which  he 
discovered  that  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles  figured  on  the 
syllabus  of  a  certain  Divinity  College  for  innocent  candi- 
dates for  the  Indian  ministry.) 

All  this  clearly  involved  the  grand  question  of  Educa- 
tion in  the  mission  field,  the  very  subject  which  very 
logically  was  down  for  discussion  the  next  day.  Speak- 
ing last  of  all  that  day,  Lord  William  Gascoyne-Cecil, 
with  ceaseless  play  of  white,  nervous  hands,  visionary 
eyes  that  contemplated  space  rather  than  his  audience, 
and  leonine  head  with  its  mane  of  tawny  hair  and  beard 
recalling  the  great  Marquis,  made  a  short  speech  which 


104  EDINBURGH  1910 

really    formed    the    transition    to    the    subject   of    the 
morrow. 

"  Educate  !  "  he  said,  "  that  your  converts  may  deal  with  all 
these  questions.  A  Church  will  always  be  in  slavery  to  others 
when  it  is  an  ignorant  Church.  An  ignorant  man  is  always  slave 
to  some  one  else.  Knowledge  is  power.  It  is  no  good  altering 
your  regulations  and  your  rules  unless  you  can  take  advantage  of 
these  alterations.  If  your  workers  are  capable  of  governing  the 
Church  they  will  govern  the  Church.  If  they  are  incapable  they 
will  not  govern  it.  To  make  them  capable  you  must  educate 
them — not  merely  a  theological  but  a  wide  education.  Trust 
them  with  the  knowledge  which  has  made  you  powerful,  and  then 
you  can  leave  your  Church  and  your  work,  confident  that  they 
will  work  out  their  own  salvation." 

4- 

That  this  counsel  had  already  been  in  no  small  measure 
followed  in  many  parts  of  Mongolian  and  Aryan  Asia, 
and  Hamitic  and  Bantu  Africa,  was  apparent  from  the 
very  fact  reported  that  day,  that  already  Churches 
exist  whose  workers  had  been  able  to  take  advantage 
of  the  privileges  which  had  made  them  actually  or 
potentially  autonomous  ;  together  with  others  the  earnest 
pressing  of  whose  claims  that  day  seemed  to  be  justified 
and  applauded  by  all. 

The  Conference  was  informed  of  the  highly  interesting 
technical  details  of  the  transition  that  had  already  been 
effected  in  Japan.  But  of  most  general  interest,  per- 
haps, was  the  problem  of  the  Churches  still  some  way 
off,  or  just  approaching,  the  transition  stage.  There 
are  many  of  the  former  everywhere  on  the  mission  field, 
but  naturally  this  was  not  an  aspect  that  lent  itself  to 
discussion  at  this  Conference.  The  Report  had  a  good 
word  on  this  subject  : — 

"  While  [the  infant  Church]  remains  in  pupilage  to  the  Home 
Church,  the  relation  between  the  two  is  essentially  temporary,  and 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  105 

the  organisation  of  '  The  Church  in  the  Mission-Field '  must 
be  regarded  as  transitional  and  not  permanent.  It  follows  that, 
until  the  stage  of  adolescence  is  reached,  the  forms  of  organisation 
should  remain  as  simple  as  the  services  required  of  them  will 
permit,  in  order  to  conserve,  as  far  as  possible,  the  spontaneity 
and  self-determination  of  the  nascent  spiritual  life.  If  too  little 
control  is  given,  the  life  may  develop  in  wrong  directions  ;  if  too 
much,  it  may  lose  the  power  of  developing  at  all." 

More  was  said  in  regard  to  the  Churches  just  approach- 
ing the  transition.  "  Do  not  wait  to  have  the  Church 
in  the  Mission-field  demand  a  larger  share  in  the 
administration  of  its  affairs  "  was  a  counsel  from  India 
which  was  heartily  applauded.  A  missionary  from 
China  made  the  Conference  laugh  by  pointing  out  that  the 
only  way  whereby  to  show  that  we  believe  our  own  state- 
ments was  by  opening  the  door  and  by  getting  out  of  the 
doorway  ;  and  that  very  often  the  foreigner  says,  "  Come 
in  !  "  but  stands  in  the  light,  bulking  so  large  that  there 
is  very  little  room  for  the  native  to  come  in  when  he 
tries  to  do  so.  Expressions  which  betray  just  the  wrong 
mental  attitude  were  held  up  for  the  condemnation  of 
ridicule — "  '  Bring  some  of  your  native  Christians  !  ' 
"  '  Native  agents  and  native  helpers !  '—Helpers  of 
whom  !  agents  of  whom  !  '  "  ;  '"Rights  of  the  Boards 
and  the  Societies,' — we  have  no  rights  except  to  serve 
our  brother  !  "...  On  the  other  hand  the  word  "  native," 
though  laboriously  held  up  for  a  like  condemnation, 
was  continually  slipping  out  of  the  mouth  of  speakers 
of  all  nationalities.  Almost  immediately  after  the 
Chairman's  elaborate  denunciation  and  abjuration 
of  it,  a  patriotic  Chinese  speaker  was  only  advised  that 
he  himself  had  violated  the  taboo  by  the  laughter 
that  interrupted  him  at  the  forbidden  word.  After 
that,  good  resolutions  broke  down  with  a  rush,  and 
with   a   sigh   of   relief    the   delegates,    "  foreign "    and 


106  EDINBURGH  1910 

"  native  "  alike,1  fell  back  on  the  dubious  but  useful 
word :  whereby  it  was  to  be  inferred  that  it  is  an  in- 
dispensable word,  difficult  to  replace  ;  and  that  its  soiling 
by  ignoble  use  is  nothing  but  a  call  to  the  Church  to 
redeem  it  again,  rather  than  hand  it  right  over  to  the 
defilers.  Perhaps,  though,  President  Harada,  speaking 
in  the  English  that  was  foreign  to  his  tongue,2  gave 
nevertheless  a  beautiful  hint  of  an  alterative  word, 
when,  with  wonderful  insight  into  the  genius  of  the 
English  tongue,  he  spoke  of  "  the  Mother  Churches." 
The  Mother  Churches  !  Why  not  then  the  Daughter, 
instead  of  the  Native,  Churches  ! 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  will  be  understood  that  the 
temper  of  the  Conference  was  significantly  in  favour  of 
advance  all  along  the  line,  in  this  policy  of  confidence 
and  commitment  to  the  daughter  Churches.  It  hardly 
even  needed  the  testimony  of  the  first  Japanese  bishop 
(Bishop  Honda)  as  to  the  tried  value  of  that  policy  in 
Japan,  or  the  plea,  put  forward  by  Ch'eng  Ching  Yi 
with  so  beautiful  a  spirit,  for  a  larger  measure  of  trust — 

"  Will  it  be  too  great  a  burden  for  the  Chinese  Christians  ?  Surely 
not !  It  is  our  privilege  and  joy,  not  our  burden.  As  a  little 
girl,  who  was  seen  carrying  a  little  boy  on  her  back  [note  the 
Chinese  touch],  when  one  said  to  her  '  I  see  you  have  a  big  burden 
on  your  back,  have  you  not  ?  '  said  :  '  That  is  not  a  burden  !  that 
is  my  brother  ! '  " 

It  hardly  needed  further  the  equally  beautiful  plea 
made  by  the  Korean,  the  Hon.  Yun  Chi-Ho,  when  he 
applied  the  principle  of  co-operation  even  to  the  question 
of  the  administration  of  foreign  monies,  and  with  finest 
insight  stated  the  ideal  yet  practical  grounds  on  which 
he  based  his  plea  :  or  the  caustic  witticism  of  a  well- 
known  missionary  leader  in  India,  quoted  by  an  Indian 

1  The  reader  may  here  puzzle  over  which  was  which. 

2  In  the  speech  noticed  on  p.  94,  footnote. 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  107 

delegate,  that  in  the  old  days  Indian  converts  had  been 
quite  willing  to  be  considered  the  children  of  the  mission- 
aries to  whom  they  owed  their  conversion  ;  but  now  there 
was  a  second  generation  of  Indian  Christians  which  had 
no  idea  of  being  the  sons  of  the  younger  missionaries, 
though  the  younger  missionaries  still  liked  to  regard 
themselves  as  the  fathers  of  the  Indian  Christians  ! — 
It  did  not  need  these  speeches  from  these  oriental 
Christians  to  gain  their  point, — the  very  ability  of  speakers 
and  speeches  was  in  itself  the  best  plea  of  all ; — for  the 
sense  of  the  meeting  was  clearly  for  the  motion.  The 
blunt  words  of  an  American  mission  secretary  went  as 
far,  or  rather  further,  than  any  plea  coming  from  the 
daughter  Churches  : — 

"  Save  in  a  very  few  countries,  no  church-polity  is  in  practice 
to-day  on  the  foreign  field.  Too  much  real  power  has  been  exer- 
cised by  the  Boards,  Societies,  and  Missions — altogether  too  much 
for  the  conditions  which  exist  to-day." 

He  went  on  to  show  the  hollowness  of  the  objection  that 
the  Church  on  the  mission  field  would  exercise  its  power 
unwisely,  and  asked  amid  cheers  if  westerners  have  never 
exercised  theirs  unwisely  ?  The  more  he  saw  of  the 
Christians  in  Asia,  he  declared,  the  more  respect  he  had 
for  them.  They  were  serving  Christ,  oftentimes  amid 
loss  of  business  and  social  ostracism  ;  yet  they  stand 
with  splendid  vitality.  And  he  concluded,  "  I  trust  that 
this  Conference  will  mark  the  period  of  transition  by  a 
true  recognition  of  the  functions  and  the  rights  of  the 
Church  of  God  in  the  non-Christian  lands." 

Certainly  the  Mother  Churches  that  day  earned  the 
right  to  appeal  in  turn,  as  did  the  Chairman  of  the 
Commission,  in  the  last  words  uttered  that  afternoon, 
to  the  representatives  of  the  Daughters  in  the  Conference. 
Addressing  them,  he  reminded  them  of  the  sincere 
cordiality  and  sympathy  they  themselves  and  their  views 


108  EDINBURGH  1910 

had  been  received  at  that  session,  and  how  more  than 
willingly  the  principle  had  been  recognised  that  the 
Oriental  Chnrches,  just  as  much  as  those  in  the  West,  have 
essential  rights,  liberties,  responsibilities,  the  source  of 
which  is  Christ  alone.  And  he  concluded  by  an  appeal 
that  they  would  interpret  to  their  peoples  on  their  return 
to  the  East  what  were  the  sentiments  with  which  the 
World  Missionary  Conference  was  animated,  and  how 
assured  therefore  is  the  future,  granted  only  patience, 
love,  and  faith. 

5- 

"  Native  Church  "  and  "  Foreign  Mission  " 

With  these  words  this  chapter  might  well  close.  But 
they  did  not  alter,  as  they  did  not  overlook,  the  fact  that 
nevertheless,  in  all  these  fields  and  all  stages  of  their  evolu- 
tion, foreign  Missions  and  native  Churches  are  found  coin- 
ciding in  the  same  place.  On  what  principle  are  their 
mutual  relations  to  be  adjusted  ?  It  was  interesting 
to  see  how  the  oriental  delegates  were  the  most  emphatic 
of  all  that  "  the  Mission  "  still  had  an  absolutely  in- 
dispensable place,  even  in  the  most  developed  field  : 
the  same  place,  in  fact,  that  it  had  when  it  entered  that 
field,  of  initiating  the  advance  into  the  regions  beyond, 
and  assisting  in  the  raising  up  of  leaders.  From  this 
point  of  view  the  independence  of  the  Mission,  as  was 
well  shown  by  an  American  missionary  to  China,  was 
every  whit  as  important  as  the  independence  of  the 
Church,  so  that  each  may  do  its  own  proper  work. 
Another  delegate  from  the  same  country  to  the  same 
field  showed  clearly  that  the  Church  can  claim  no  right 
to  restrict  or  control  the  work  of  the  missions  in  any  way. 
They  are  free  to  work  where  and  how  they  please  ; 
but  if  they  choose  to  work  within  the  Japanese  Church, 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  109 

they  should  do  it  only  on  condition  that  it  should  be  under 
that  Church's  supervision.  "  A  tailor,"  he  wittily  re- 
marked, "may  sew  in  any  way  he  chooses,  but  if  he  is 
sewing  upon  my  suit  of  clothes  I  have  a  right  to  direct 
how  he  should  sew."  It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss 
here  the  various  solutions  by  which  the  spheres  of 
"  Mission  "  and  "  Church  "  are  harmonised — solutions 
varying  according  to  the  ethos  of  the  various  types  of 
ecclesiastical  governments,  whether  Episcopal,  Presby- 
teral,  or  Congregational.  One  was  left  with  the  im- 
pression that  oriental  heads  were  in  this  matter  as  level 
as  those  placed  on  occidental  shoulders.  It  was,  for 
example,  an  Indian,  J.  R.  Chitamber,  who  advanced  three 
powerful  reasons  against  a  proposal  which  at  first  sight 
looked  like  giving  the  native-Christian  worker  more 
honour,  the  proposal  to  take  specially  qualified  oriental 
workers  on  to  the  staff  of  "  the  Mission." 

The  strong  impression  that  the  day's  proceedings  left 
was  that  both  in  spirit  and  in  form  this  problem  is  in  course 
of  being  happily  solved  in  the  daughter-churches  of  the 
East.  If  the  spirit  is  right  the  solution  must  follow. 
If  the  personal  relation  is  sound  the  corporate  relationship 
wTill  easily  be  adjusted.  In  this  connection  one  of  the 
least  forgettable  moments  of  the  Conference  was  an 
evening  address  by  the  delegate  from  South  India,  V.  S. 
Azariah,  in  which  he  pled  for  a  deep  readjustment  of  the 
personal  relation  that  sometimes  existed  (he  alleged) 
in  India  ;  for  a  more  real  co-operation  of  spirit  between 
Western  and  Eastern, — in  one  word,  for  "  friendship." 

The  address  commanded,  to  say  the  least,  a  by  no  means 
unqualified  assent  in  that  great  assemblage.  Possibly 
some  of  the  men — Indian  missionaries  they  were — whose 
dissent,  and  even  more  than  dissent,  boiled  every  now 
and  then  to  the  surface,  did  not  quite  understand  what 
the   speaker   was   intending.      Or   possibly   they   were 


110  EDINBURGH  1910 

unnecessarily  trying  to  fit  the  cap  on  to  heads  never 
measured  for  it.  But,  in  any  case,  the  address  was  a 
not  forgettable  feature  of  the  Conference  ;  and  even  if  it 
were  mistaken,  the  courage  it  evinced  and  the  delicacy 
and  humour  with  which  the  thing  was  done,  entitle  it  to 
recognition.  It  did  not  need  the  speaker's  assurance 
that  it  was  an  unpleasant  task  ;  an  electric  silence, 
broken  now  by  a  sort  of  subterraneous  rumbling  of  dissent, 
or  startled  by  thunderish  claps  of  applause,  is  the  least 
comfortable  of  all  atmospheres  for  an  orator  to  speak  in, 
and  demanded  all  the  evident  courage  of  the  man  to 
speak  in  it.  He  had  been  pressed  (he  said)  against  his 
will  to  give  that  address,  and  had  only  yielded  on 
condition  that  he  might  speak  his  whole  mind.  He 
disarmed  a  possible  or  rather  a  certain,  criticism,  saying 
at  the  outset  that  his  personal  relations  with  Western 
missionaries  had  invariably  been  "  simply  delightful." 
And  this  gave  the  cue  to  the  appeal  which  was  the  whole 
gist  of  the  speech — that  "  friendship  "  and  no  other 
thing  should  regulate  the  relations  between  Eastern 
and  Western.  It  did  not  always  in  India  so  regulate 
them,  he  felt  ;  and  he  gave  instances  of  what  he 
meant.  It  was  here  that  a  flash  of  humour  relieved  the 
tension.  He  was  speaking  of  a  glaring  instance  of  some- 
thing other  than  "  friendship  "  regulating  the  dealing 
of  missionary  with  native  Christians  :  "of  course  "  (he 
continued)  "  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  this  sort  of  thing 
is  typical."  (Significant  applause  from  the  dissidents.) 
.  .  .  The  speaker  looked  up  ;  and  then,  with  a  dry 
impromptu — "  At  the  same  time  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  think  that  it  was  exceptional  !  "  Somehow  the 
deft  reply  to  the  implication  of  that  applause  tickled 
the  Conference's  sense  of  humour,  and  a  general  burst 
of  applause  and  laughter  cleared  the  air.  Speaking 
with  the  subdued   intensity   that   underlay   the   whole 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  111 

speech,  he  closed  thus,  the  rolled  foreign  r's  making  the 
words  "friends,"  "friendship,"  vibrate  through  the 
hall  :— 

"  This  will  be  possible  only  from  spiritual  friendships  between  the 
two  races.  .  .  .  Through  all  the  ages  to  come  the  Indian  Church  will 
rise  up  in  gratitude  to  attest  the  heroism  and  self-denying  labours 
of  the  missionary  body.  You  have  given  your  goods  to  feed  the 
poor.  You  have  given  your  bodies  to  be  burned.  We  also  ask  for 
love.     Give  us  friends  !  " 

Most  people,  one  fancied,  were  touched  by  a  sincere 
speech.  It  could  after  all  do  one  no  harm  to  be  reminded 
of  the  difficult  ideal  of  inter-racial  friendship.  And  as  for 
the  criticism,  what  does  it  matter  even  if  criticism  passed 
on  us  is  false  ?  The  point  is,  that  in  that  we  see  the  im- 
pression we  have  made  on  those  who  pass  the  criticism  ; 
that  thus  and  not  otherwise  they  feel  about  us.  The 
old  couplet — "Oh  wad  some  fay  the  giftie  gie  us  to  see 
oursels  as  ithers  see  us,"  loses  no  particle  of  its  point  if  the 
vision  of  those  others  is  most  unaccountably  mistaken. 


"  Church  ?'*  or  "  Churches  ?  "  in  the  Mission-Field 

One  more  aspect  of  the  subject  remained — the  supreme 
one.  Under  the  fourth  aspect  the  Conference  had 
climbed  to  the  conception  of  these  independent  Daughter 
Churches.  What  about  "The  Church  on  the  mission-field? " 

This  was  the  great  subject  to  which  had  been  given  a 
whole  Commission  to  itself,  and  was  to  have  a  whole 
day  for  its  discussion.  Accordingly  little  was  said  about 
it  on  this  day — but  enough  not  to  leave  the  edifice  of 
the  day's  debate  uncrowned.  A  Chinese  delegate  struck 
a  ringing  note  in  a  speech  the  object  of  which  was  a 
plea  for  "  Chinese  independence,"  he  quickly  qualified 
the  word  : — "  Really  there  is  no  independence  of  the 


112  EDINBURGH  1910 

Church.  All  Churches  of  Christ  are  dependent  first  upon 
God  and  then  upon  each  other."  Another  speaker,  with 
the  same  primary  object,  was  equally  swift  to  state  a 
complementary  caution  :  "  There  is  a  danger  [in  this 
movement  in  the  Chinese  Church]  because  we  do  not 
want  to  see  arising  in  China,  or  any  far-eastern  land, 
a  Far-Eastern  Church  separated  in  sympathy  and  in 
aim  from  the  Catholic  Church  of  a  Christian  World." 
Both  speakers  were  congregationalist  in  church-polity. 
And  it  was  characteristic  of  the  spirit  that  informed  this 
Conference  of  Edinburgh  1910,  that  it  should  have  been 
these  who  gave  expression  to  the  shining  ideal  of 
Catholicity,  of  the  one  Civitas  Dei,  no  less  than  two 
Bishops  of  the  Anglican  communion.  Of  these  two, 
the  first  said  that  the  missionary  in  China  must  realise 
always  that  he  stands  at  any  rate  for  the  present  as  a 
mediator  with  the  Church  Universal,  and  foreign  workers 
must  never  withdraw  from  China  until  there  are  Chinese 
workers  able  in  their  own  persons  to  maintain  touch  with 
the  Universal  Church."  (Bishop  Roots  of  Hankow). 
And  the  other  : — 

"  If  we  are  to  hand  over  Christianity  to  the  Church  of  China, 
and  Japan,  and  India  with  good  courage,  then  we  must  have  done 
more  than  at  the  present  moment  we  seem,  I  think,  inclined  to  do — 
to  contribute  to  a  definition  of  what  the  Church  is,  the  definition 
of  its  essential  or  real  Catholic  features.  Men  are  conscious  that 
what  they  used  forcibly  to  assert  was  essential  to  Christianity 
they  are  no  longer  willing  to  assert.  Now  it  follows  from  that  that 
they  ought  to  be  labouring  patiently  and  diligently  to  know  what 
they  are  to  substitute  for  the  old  assertion.  ...  I  am  very  far 
from  meaning  that  it  is  our  business,  as  Westerns,  to  define  this  for 
Easterns  or  for  Africans.     What  I  mean  is  .  .  ." 

The  bell  stung  the  intent  silence  and  the  Bishop  of 
Birmingham  prepared  to  flee.  To  this  speech  alone 
the  clamour  of  the  entire  audience  compelled  the  grant- 


THE  CHURCH  ON  THE  MISSION-FIELD  US 

ing  of  an  extension,  and  Bishop  Gore  finished  his 
sentence  : — 

"  that  we  have  got  to  put  into  all  bodies  of  Christians  the  con- 
sciousness that  continuous  life  depends  on  continuous  principles, 
and  that  any  period  of  deep  intellectual  change  involves  and  necessi- 
tates fresh  effort  to  interpret  in  such  intellectual  forms  as  admit  of 
statement,  and  become  a  bond  of  union,  what  we  believe  to  be  the 
real  basis  of  a  Christianity  that  can  be  copied." 

7- 

We  may  fittingly  close  this  chapter  with  the  eloquent 

words  with  which  the  Report  concludes  a  tour  of  the 

imagination,  a  tour  and  a  survey  of   the   great  round 

world  and  the  little  churches  on  its  Mission-Fields.    As 

the  mind  follows  the  sunrise  that  scatters  the  shadow 

of  the  night  and  ushers  in  a  Lord's   Day  all  over  the 

face  of  the  earth,  it  beholds  how  "  from  the  rising  of  the 

sun  to  the  going  down  of  it,  incense  and  a  pure  offering 

ascends  unceasingly  to  God,  land  answering  to  land  as 

each   in   turn   takes   up   the   chorus.     So   under   God's 

ordinances  of  day  and  night  it  has  already  come  to  pass 

that  not  for  one  day  only,  as  we  commonly  say,  but  for 

more  than  thirty-six  hours  every  week  The  Holy  Church 

throughout   all  the  world  keeps   her  sacred  watch   in 

solemn  commemoration  of  the  Resurrection  of  her  Lord. 

The  Commission  humbly  desires  that  it  could  so  present 

a  true  vision  of  the  great  Church  in  the  Mission-Field 

as  to  give  a  new  inspiration  to  Christian  thought,  so  that 

all  should  sing  with   a  new  and  intenser  emotion  our 

ancient  hymn, 

"  ■  The  Holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world  doth  acknow- 
ledge Thee.'  " 


CHAPTER  IX 

EDUCATION   IN   RELATION   TO   THE   CHRISTIANISATION 
OF   NATIONAL   LIFE 

In  the  last  chapter,  which  was  a  narrative  of  what  took 
place  on  the  second  day  of  the  Conference,  the  importance 
of  an  efficient  pastorate  to  lead  "  the  Church  on  the  Mission- 
Field  "  was  shown  to  be  cardinal.  On  this  more  than 
any  other  class  devolved  the  duty  of  interpreting  the 
Christian  faith  to  their  nation  and  so  of  rendering  it 
indigenous  in  every  land  :  so  that  "  the  glory  and  honour 
of  all  nations  "  1  be  brought  within  the  circle  of  the  King- 
dom of  God.  "  This  work,"  said  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham, 
"  will  be  the  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God  through  teachers 
belonging  to  the  country."  It  was,  therefore,  immediately 
obvious  that  the  question  of  the  efficiency  of  the 
pastorate,  or  the  reverse,  turned  upon  its  training ;  and 
accordingly  an  all-important  section  on  the  training  of 
the  pastorate  was  included  in  the  Report  of  the 
Commission  discussed  on  that  day. 

But  the  training  of  the  ministry  is  only  an  aspect, 
though  the  supreme  aspect,  of  the  whole  question  of 
Education.  For  apart  from  the  fact  that  the  clergy  must 
be  "  educated  "  before  they  can  be  "trained  "  (to  use  the 

1  In  Rev.  xxi.  3  a  certain  familiar  Old  Testament  quotation  is  for 
the  first  time  significantly   varied,   the    usual    singular    becoming    a 
plural :    "  They  shall    be  My  nations " — in    the  New  Jerusalem    into 
which  the  fulness  of  a  redeemed  earth  is  brought. 
114 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  115 

terms  in  their  conventional  senses),  there  is  the  further 
fact,  to  which  indeed  the  Bishop  was  alluding  in  the 
sentence  just  quoted,  that  the  schoolmaster  as  well  as  the 
preacher  and  pastor  has  an  all-important  part  to  play  in 
the  Christianising  of  national  life  on  the  mission-field,  the 
bringing  of  the  glory  of  the  nations  into  the  Church. 
From  the  schools — with  their  range  from  kindergarten  to 
university — come  the  leaders  of  both  Church  and  State 
in  all  these  mission  lands  ;  the  ministers,  the  teachers, 
all  the  laymen  who  are  going  to  lead.  In  these  schools 
are  educated  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Christian  com- 
munities, no  less  important  than  those,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  carrying  the  gospel  to  their  own  people.  These  are 
the  men,  then,  who  will  interpret  the  Christian  faith 
to  their  fellow-countrymen  ;  and  therefore  the  whole 
question  of  education  in  the  mission  field  becomes  at 
once  one  of  the  most  vital  importance.  This,  then, 
was  the  question  which,  by  the  most  natural  and  proper 
transition,  was  now  discussed  on  the  third  day  of  the 
World  Missionary  Conference. 


Missionary  education,  as  we  may  gather  from  what  has 
just  been  said,  occupies  a  place  of  primary  importance 
in  the  estimate  of  those  who  lead  the  Christian  enter- 
prise in  all  the  world.  It  always  has  done  so  ;  though 
the  rationale  of  its  importance  was  not  always  fully 
realised.  The  great  Dr  Duff  was  the  man  who  led  the 
way  in  expounding  the  philosophy  of  Christian  education 
in  the  mission-field,  though  the  lessons  he  suggested 
can  hardly  yet  be  said  to  have  been  fully  learned,  even 
by  many  of  the  directors  of  the  enterprise  at  home. 
Probably  this  Edinburgh  Conference,  and  the  Report  of 
this  third  Commission,  will  mark  the  final  stage  of  the 


116  EDINBURGH  1910 

assimilation  of  those  lessons,  and  education  be  recognised 
and  studied,  as  a  method  entirely  parallel  with  the 
evangelistic,  medical,  and  pastoral  aspects  of  missionary 
work. 

But  if  even  the  directors  of  missions  have  only  come 
gradually  to  this  position,  it  is  probably  that  others 
are  still  almost  totally  unaware  of  the  real  place  of 
education  in  the  missionary  enterprise.  A  vague  idea 
that  the  mission  school  is  useful  as  a  means  of  teaching 
heathens  or  native  Christians  to  read  the  Scriptures 
probably  represents  the  general  notion.  To  such  the 
perusal  of  the  Report  of  this  Commission,  or  of  the  debate 
upon  it,  will  come  as  a  simple  revelation.  It  will  give 
them  too,  perhaps,  a  wholly  new  idea  of  the  dignity, 
the  significance,  and  the  thoroughness  of  the  missionary 
enterprise.  It  must  be  the  task  of  this  chapter,  at  any 
rate,  so  to  interpret  both  Report  and  debate  that  this 
— whether  for  the  first  time  or  not — may  indeed  be  the 
impression  that  is  conveyed  to  the  reader. 

2. 

The  Report,  to  which  the  Conference  now  turned,  was 
indeed  a  masterly  document.  On  the  Commission  which 
drew  it  up  were  great  names — the  Bishop  of  Birmingham, 
Professor  E.  C.  Moore  of  Harvard,  Professor  M.  E. 
Sadler  of  Manchester,  and  Sir  Ernest  Satow,  to  name  only 
four.  It  was  not  only  intrinsically  important,  as  it 
stood,  but  it  was  invested  with  the  additional  importance 
of  being  a  first  achievement.  The  Vice-Chairman  of  the 
Commission,  Professor  E.  C.  Moore,  was  weighing  his 
words  when  he  said  that  that  Report,  like  all  the  others, 
marked  an  epoch  in  this,  "  that  it  is  the  beginning  of  a 
serious  endeavour  to  arrive  by  joint  consultation  at  a 
policy."     If  it  had  the  faults,  it  also  had  the  glory  of 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  117 

a  first  beginning,  he  added.  One  may  judge  of  its  value, 
not  only  by  the  authoritative  rank  of  the  commissioners, 
but  by  the  number,  the  representativeness,  and  the 
ability  of  the  men  and  women  who  supplied  the  material 
which  the  commissioners  co-ordinated  and  presented 
in  an  organic  whole,  and  from  which  they  derived 
their  far-reaching  inferences  and  conclusions.  Two 
hundred  correspondents — missionaries  from  India  and 
Ceylon,  from  Japan,  Korea  and  China,  from  Malaysia  and 
the  Levant,  and  from  all  over  the  continent  of  Africa — 
replied  to  the  questions  sent  out  ;  and  the  Report  in  its 
introduction  acknowledged  that  "  many  of  these  [replies] 
were  of  very  high  value."  In  five  great  chapters  the 
five  principal  divisions  of  the  field  are  reviewed.  Then 
comes  a  masterly  treatise,  both  historical  and  philo- 
sophical, on  the  relation  of  Christian  truth  to  indigenous 
thought  and  feeling,  and  the  bearing  of  education  on 
that  relation.  Three  further  chapters,  highly  informing 
and  suggestive,  on  industrial  training,  literature  in  the 
mission  field,  and  the  training  of  teachers,  lead  on  to 
the  conclusion  of  the  Report.  In  spite  of  this  document 
being  a  Report — a  very  formidable  word — it  is  extremely 
readable  :  the  very  character  of  its  materials,  and  the 
unconventional  range  of  its  enquiry,  ensured  that 
much.  The  historical  chapter  alluded  to  above  discusses 
education  in  the  Roman  Empire,  the  educational 
ideas  and  attainments  of  the  early  Christians,  early 
educational  philosophers  like  Origen,  and  many  other 
topics  of  great  general  interest,  in  order  to  lay,  deep  and 
broad,  the  foundation  for  a  science  of  Educational 
Missions  to-day.  It  did  not  need  much  higher  critical 
faculty  to  trace  the  authorship  of  this  delightful  chapter, 
— and  the  rest  of  the  Report  is  equally  readable, — or  to  see 
in  it  all  the  educational  ideals  and  experiences  successively 
gained    at    Oxford,     Westminster,    and    Birmingham. 


118  EDINBURGH  1910 

The   resulting   blend   of   living   scholarship    and   living 
experience  gives  it  both  its  value  and  its  charm. 


3- 

How  mighty  a  force  educational  missions  have  been 
— and  by  no  means  from  the  purely  missionary  view-point 
— was  well  demonstrated  in  the  speech  with  which  the 
Chairman  of  the  Commission,  Dr  Gore,  Lord  Bishop  of 
Birmingham,  opened  the  debate.  And  it  should  be 
remembered  that  he  was  the  mouthpiece  of  a  Commission 
that  included  a  great  Eastern  diplomatist,  and  a  British 
educational  authority  of  highest  rank,  when  he  spoke  of 
the  "  impression  which  has  been  produced  upon  our 
minds  as  to  the  real  and  rich  and  abundant  fruit  which 
the  educational  labours  of  missionaries  have  borne  in 
every  part  of  the  world  "  :  and  further,  went  on  to 
enumerate  some  of  those  fruits.  He  spoke  of  the 
diffusion  of  Christian  ideas  and  ideals  "  far  beyond  the 
region  of  any  specific  church  influence  "  ;  the  elevation 
of  outcasts ;  the  first  introduction  of  the  very  idea 
and  ideal  of  the  education  of  women  ;  the  sustaining 
of  the  ideal  of  education  as  a  harmonious  training  of  the 
whole  man,  with  definite  regard  to  a  goal  of  social 
service  ;  and  finally  the  creation  of  a  bond — perhaps  the 
one  real  bond — of  spiritual  sympathy  between  the 
European  and  the  peoples  of  Asia  and  of  Africa — these, 
he  said,  were  some  of  the  achievements  of  education 
in  the  mission  fields  of  the  world. 

And  at  the  end  of  the  morning  session,  Professor  M.  E. 
Sadler,  probably  one  of  the  highest  educational  authorities 
living,  bore  witness  to  the  real  importance  of  the  reflex 
light  thrown  by  educational  missions  on  educational 
science  at  home.  "  The  educational  science  of  Europe  and 
America,"  he  roundly  declared,  "  has  paid  far  too  little 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  119 

heed  to  the  experience  of  the  mission  field."  He  spoke 
of  his  own  profound  sense  of  the  value  of  missionary 
educators  as  shown  at  once  by  their  contributions  to  the 
Report  and  to  the  morning's  discussion.  These  con- 
tributions he  called  "  first-hand  experience  of  the  highest 
value  gathered  through  long  years  of  devoted  effort 
in  every  part  of  the  world."  And  it  was  highly  signifi- 
cant that  it  was  this  speaker  who  should  have  given 
expression  to  the  hope  that 

"  this  gathering  may  leave  behind  it  some  form  of  permanent 
organisation  which  may  continuously  gather  together  missionary 
experience  in  education,  and  present  it  in  such  a  way  that  it  may 
fertilise  Jie  educational  thought  of  the  world  more  fully  than  it 
has  done  at  present." 

The  specific  thing  which  the  speaker  valued  most  highly 
was,  as  he  went  on  to  say,  the  contribution  that  educa- 
tional missions  make  to  the  present  problem  in  the  West, 
where  education  is  becoming  more  and  more  organised  and 
dependent  on  public  money, — "  how  to  preserve  for  it 
amid  all  the  conflicts  of  belief  the  power  of  a  spiritual 
ideal,  without  which  no  education  can  do  that  which 
we  here  feel  to  be  its  prime  and  its  most  lasting 
work."  It  was,  indeed,  deeply  interesting,  in  days  when 
some  who  are  reckoned  advanced  thinkers  are  ridiculing 
the  schoolmaster  for  meddling  with  "  moral "  and 
"  spiritual  "  affairs  at  all,  to  see  a  great  educationist 
take  up  his  stand  for  the  knitting  together  of  the  in- 
tellectual side  of  education  with  the  emotional  and 
spiritual,  and  after  saying 

"  The  great  danger  of  the  highly-organised  systems  of  modern 
education  in  Europe  is  that,  being  hyper-intellectual,  they  lead 
often  to  moral  scepticism," 

to  hear  him  citing  the  experience  of  educationalists  from 


120  EDINBURGH  1910 

the  mission-fields  as  corrective  of  some  one-sided  and 
unphilosophic  theories  of  modern  Europe  ! 


After  these  general  considerations,  the  reader  of  this 
chapter  will,  it  is  hoped,  feel  more  than  an  impersonal 
interest  in  hearing  of  the  critical  problems  that  face 
missionary  educators  in  mission  lands  in  their  endeavours 
to  mould  and  Christianise  the  national  life  of  the  peoples 
to  whom  they  have  gone. 

Nowhere  has  missionary  education  had  a  more  dis- 
tinguished history,  bright  with  more  illustrious  names, 
than  in  India.  Nowhere  has  it  before  it  a  more  open 
field  or  a  more  decisive  opportunity.  The  many-sided 
national  movement  in  India  to-day  has  neither  depleted 
nor  emptied  the  missionary  colleges  and  schools ;  on 
the  contrary  the  Conference  had  it  from  speaker  after 
speaker — Principals  Mackichan  and  Haythornthwaite, 
for  example — that  their  classrooms  "  had  never  been 
so  crowded,"  and  so  '*  overflowing  with  students." 
Facts  like  these  very  greatly  emphasise  the  necessity 
of  Christianising  this  dawning  national  life.  What 
basis  of  unity  can  be  found  for  this  national  life  ?  No 
basis,  argued  one  well-known  man,  can  be  found  for 
it  in  Hinduism  or  Islam  or  Secularism  or  Rationalism. 
But  it  can  be  found  in  Christianity,  the  faith  with  ideals 
of  universality,  of  brotherhood,  and  of  freedom.  The 
Report,  therefore,  is  full  of  passages  which  show  how 
educators  are  re-thinking  out  their  methods,  and  revising 
their  curricula,  some  of  which  have  hitherto  been  too 
much  directed  to  the  attaining  London  University 
degrees,  and  too  little  to  the  production  of  national 
leaders.  It  is  being  realised  more  keenly  that  it  must  be 
the  missionary  college  that  shall  kindle  the  young  Indian's 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  121 

patriotic  enthusiasm,  by  teaching  him  his  own  language 
and  the  history  and  literature  of  his  own  country,  lest 
that  enthusiasm  be  kindled  by  alien  hands  and  enlisted 
for  disloyal  and  anti-Christian  causes.  And,  in 
particular,  it  is  widely  felt  that  the  training  of  Indian 
teachers  must  be  revised.  Their  training  above  all 
must  be  nationalised,  since  it  is  they  who  most  of  all 
have  to  mediate  Christianity  to  the  Indian  mind. 
Speaker  after  speaker  got  up  and  emphasised  this 
finding  of  the  Report — that  the  supreme  need  of  the 
hour  is  for  leaders  to  lead  India  in  this  her  time  of  crisis. 

And  here  it  was  notable  that  this  need  for  improving 
educational  method,  so  keenly  felt  and  so  continually 
emphasised,  seemed  only  to  heighten  and  give  precision 
to  the  old  emphasis  on  the  evangelistic  aspect  of  mis- 
sionary education.  The  Conference  heard  educational 
missionary  vie  with  evangelistic  in  insisting  that  the 
ultimate  aim  of  mission  schools  is  to  win  men  for  Christ. 
Men  so  won  are  far  the  best  present  that  mission 
schools  can  make  to  India  at  the  present  moment,  for 
they  are  the  men  who  have  the  moral  backbone  and 
grit  of  character  which  India  above  all  things  needs  in 
her  sons  to-day. 

In  the  face  of  all  these  facts,  —  the  increased 
difficulties  in  which  an  ever  intenser  competition  is 
involving  missionary  education  ;  the  universal  under- 
staffing  and  under-equipping,  and  the  absolute  necessity 
nevertheless  for  immediately  strengthening  tke  staffs, 
and  improving  the  quality  of  educational  apparatus 
and  equipment  in  all  our  schools  ; — two  things  were 
made  transparently  evident  to  the  Conference  :  first, 
that  there  must  be  immediate  reinforcements  sent  for 
the  staffing  of  Christian  schools  and  colleges  throughout 
India  ;  and  second,  that  a  co-operation  and  co-ordination 
of  the  most  definite  kind  must  be  practised  on  the  field 


122  EDINBURGH  1910 

itself,  in  order  that  the  existing  forces  may  be  directed 
to  the  very  highest  advantage. 

There  was  one  other  aspect  of  missionary  education 
in  India  that  was  brought  into  great  prominence  in 
both  Report  and  debate  :  an  aspect  that  had  a  most 
important  bearing  on  this  matter  of  the  Christianising 
of  Indian  national  life, — what  may  be  called  the  ideal 
of  "  diffused  Christian  influence."  Special  prominence 
had  been  given  to  this  ideal  by  the  most  distinguished 
educationalist  in  all  India,  the  veteran  Dr  Miller  of 
Madras.  He  had  written  a  very  strong  letter  and 
issued  it  in  printed  form  to  all  the  delegates,  in  which 
he  declared  his  conviction  that  the  Indian  Church  was 
still  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  foreign  church,  and 
that  it  would  remain  so  as  long  as  Hindus  of  the  higher 
castes,  who  are  the  real  representatives  of  India,  remain 
untouched  by  Christianity.  And  he  insisted  that 
India  could  never  be  won  for  Christ,  if  it  is  the  lower 
castes  or  outcastes  who  are  relied  upon.  The  higher 
castes  must  be  reached,  and  the  only  way  of  reaching 
these  classes  is  by  diffusing  Christian  influence  amongst 
them  by  means  of  educational  institutions  providing 
the  very  highest  education.  The  letter  was  strongly, 
even  provocatively,  worded,  and  many  references  were 
made  to  it  in  the  discussion.  One  speaker  pointed  out 
that  to  talk  exclusively  of  the  highest  and  the  lowest 
classes  was  to  omit  the  class  that  contained  65  per  cent, 
of  the  nation — the  middle-class.  The  "  sense  of  the 
meeting  "  seemed  to  be  that  while  fully  conceding  the 
force  of  Dr  Miller's  positive  contention,  and  resolving 
firmly  not  to  slacken  in  the  smallest  degree  our  efforts  to 
leaven  the  thought  of  the  whole  Indian  community 
through  well-equipped  schools  and  colleges,  a  most 
effectual  way  to  the  heart  of  the  nation  was  to  be  found 
in  the  training  of  leaders  for  a  truly  national  church. 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  123 

5- 

The  first  day  of  discussion  had  reminded  the  Conference 
of  the  vast  problem  of  Islam,  that  great  non-Christian 
system  that  strides  like  a  Colossus  over  half  of  Asia  and 
Africa.  This  Commission  on  Education  now  revealed 
the  extraordinary  importance  of  the  work  of  missionary 
schools  or  colleges  in  Moslem  lands.  In  the  Turkish 
Empire  there  have  been  no  stronger  centres  of  reform 
than  the  great  American  colleges  that  are  found  occupy- 
ing so  many  strategic  centres  in  Turkey,  Anatolia, 
Armenia,  Syria,  from  Constantinople  to  Beyrout ;  colleges 
which  are,  moreover,  only  the  crowning  stages  of  complete 
systems  of  education  ranging  from  infant  schools  to 
professional  colleges.  They  have  confined  themselves 
most  loyally  to  purely  educational  aims  and  methods  ; 
yet  their  influence  has  been  such  that  the  recent  reform 
movement  in  the  Ottoman  Empire  has  been  attributed 
to  it  more  than  to  any  one  other  cause.  That  there  is 
little  exaggeration  in  this  statement  may  be  concluded 
from  the  following  testimony  from  an  eminent  traveller, 
Sir  William  Ramsay,  who  says  in  his  "  Impressions  of 
Turkey  "  : — 

"  I  have  come  in  contact  with  men  educated  in  Robert  College, 
in  widely  separate  parts  of  the  country,  men  of  diverse  races,  and 
different  forms  of  religion — Greek,  Armenian,  and  Protestant — 
and  have  everywhere  been  struck  with  the  marvellous  way  in 
which  a  certain  uniform  type,  direct,  simple,  honest,  and  lofty 
in  tone  has  been  impressed  upon  them  ;  some  had  more  of  it, 
some  less  ;  but  all  had  it  to  a  certain  degree  ;  and  it  is  diametri- 
cally opposite  to  the  type  produced  by  growth  under  the  ordinary 
conditions  of  Turkish  life." 

With  the  proved  influence  of  these  colleges  fresh  in 
mind,  the  Conference  heard  an  appeal  from  that  country 
where  the  conditions  are  in  so  many  respects  analogous 


124  EDINBURGH  1910 

to  those  in  Turkey, — the  ancient  kingdom  of  Persia. 
It  was  impossible  not  to  be  impressed  by  the  speech  of  a 
well-known  Orientalist  and  scholar,  Dr  St  Clair  Tisdall, 
who  urged  the  starting  of  a  similar  college  in  Persia,  to 
crown  the  efficient  system  of  mission  schools  that  already 
exist  in  that  land,  and  also  asked  for  a  great  strengthen- 
ing and  increasing  of  the  mission  schools  throughout 
the  Empire.  It  is  surely  entirely  to  be  desired  that 
this  powerful  appeal  will  be  taken  up.  Nor  are  Turkey 
and  Persia  the  only  realms  in  the  Mohammedan  East  in 
which  Americans  are  doing  this  great  educational  work. 
In  Egypt,  as  the  venerable  Dr  Andrew  Watson  of  Cairo 
told  the  Conference,  an  American  mission  has  190  schools, 
with  17,000  pupils,  of  whom  some  4000  are  Mohamme- 
dans. The  first-rate  importance  of  educational  missions 
in  Moslem  Africa  was  further  proved  by  what  was  heard 
from  the  East  Coast,  where  Islam  is  making  such  rapid 
strides  southwards.  The  statement  of  the  Bishop  of 
Mombasa,  in  East  Equatorial  Africa,  was  quoted  (to 
mention  only  one  high  authority) — that  the  most  direct 
way  of  checking  Moslem  advance  and  of  influencing  Islam 
for  Christ  would  be  by  the  establishing  of  numerous 
schools  in  all  Islamised  districts.  To  these  schools  the  sons 
of  Moslem  notables  would  certainly  flock  ;  whereas  if  we 
do  not  start  such  schools  they  will  start  their  own,  and 
these  will  be  bitterly  anti-Christian  and  will  hasten  the 
already  rapid  advance  of  Islam.  And  from  the  West 
Coast  came  a  similar  moving  appeal.  Absent  at  his 
work  among  the  great  and  important  nation  of  the 
Hausas,  Dr  Walter  Miller  was  nevertheless  heard, 
through  a  friend,  declaring  that  with  a  fairly  considerable 
force  of  educationalists,  a  work  of  far-reaching  influence 
and  importance  could  be  done  in  Northern  Nigeria,  and 
from  thence  all  through  the  Central  Sudan. 
A  large  section  of  the  Report  was  devoted  to  educational 


CHRISTIANS ATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  125 

missions  in  heathen  Africa  also.  The  great  problem 
here  was  there  stated  to  be  the  due  adjustment  of  the 
literary  and  the  industrial  elements  in  the  education 
provided  by  the  mission  schools.  The  former  without 
the  latter  tends  utterly  to  spoil  the  negro,  while  an 
industrial  without  a  literary  education  wholly  fails  to 
develop  the  whole  man.  Readers  of  Mr  Dudley  Kidd's 
recent  books,  especially  "Kaffir  Socialism,"  will  remember 
how  much  he  emphasises  the  need  for  "  fundamental 
thinking  "  on  the  subject  of  negro  education,  and  its 
bearing  on  the  national  life  of  Africans.  For  India 
and  the  countries  of  the  East  are  not  the  only  ones  that 
have  their  national  movements  to-day.  South  Africa 
with  its  Ethiopianism  is  experiencing  the  same  move- 
ment— one  attended  with  special  elements  of  anxiety  and 
danger,  not  found  in  countries  where  there  is  a  uniformity 
of  race,  and  where  a  black  and  a  white  people  do  not 
co-exist  side  by  side.  Diverse  as  are  the  conditions  in  the 
several  regions  of  negro  Africa,  the  same  impression 
was  nevertheless  left  by  reports  from  Cape  Colony,  Natal, 
Transvaal,  Basutoland,  Lourenco  Marquez,  Nyasaland, 
Uganda,  Southern  Nigeria  and  Sierra  Leone,  that  the 
"  Christianisation  of  National  Life  "  is  everywhere  to  be 
effected  by  the  raising  up  of  qualified  African  leaders  ; 
and  that  these  can  only  be  raised  up  by  an  education  as 
thoroughly  planned  and  as  ably  carried  out  in  its  way 
as  the  developed  systems  that  exist  in  the  more  advanced 
countries  of  the  mission  field. 

6. 

The  interest,  already  high  in  the  morning,  reached  its 
culmination  in  the  afternoon,  when  the  educational 
problems  now  facing  the  Church  in  Japan  and  China 
were  set  before  the  Conference. 


126  EDINBURGH  1910 

From  the  aspect  of  missionary  education,  Japan  pre- 
sented to  the  Conference  a  situation  of  very  great  difficulty 
and  urgency.  How  great  the  influence  of  Christian 
education  has  been  in  the  past,  was  shown  by  a  striking 
object-lesson.  On  the  benches  of  the  Conference  sat 
the  four  Japanese  delegates  to  the  Conference  ;  and 
Professor  E.  W.  Clement,  in  giving  a  short  summary 
of  their  life  histories,  was  more  convincing  than  the 
Report  itself.  Y.  Chiba,  alumnus  of  the  Missionary 
College  of  Aoyama  Gakuin,  and  now  President  of  a 
theological  seminary ;  T.  Harada,  alumnus  of  the 
Doshisha,  honorary  LL.D.  of  Edinburgh,  and  now 
President  of  his  alma  mater,  the  most  important  Christian 
college  in  Japan  ;  Yoitsu  Honda  and  K.  Ibuka,  both 
pupils  of  Dr  S.  R.  Brown,  the  pioneer  missionary,  and  both 
of  them  subsequently  Presidents  of  important  educational 
institutions.  These  "  illustrate  in  themselves  the 
relation  of  Christian  education  to  the  development  of 
indigenous  Christianity  in  Japan  "  : — four  scholars  of 
Christian  schools ;  four  Presidents  of  colleges  that  are 
helping  to  mould  the  national  life  of  Japan !  But  the 
Government  of  Japan  has  now  its  own  astonishingly 
complete  educational  system,  spread  like  a  network 
all  over  the  country.  The  Government  undertakes 
the  education  of  every  Japanese  child  from  the  kinder- 
garten, at  the  age  of  three,  right  up  to  a  University  degree, 
and  post  graduate  work  beyond  that  degree.  And  the 
influences  found  in  this  system  are  in  many  respects  very 
injurious  to  Christianity,  and  to  that  Christian  character 
which  is  the  Church's  best  contribution  to  Japanese  life. 

It  is,  therefore,  easy  to  see  how  hard  such  competition 
as  this  has  hit  Christian  education  in  Japan,  and  how  com- 
pletely the  long  start  of  the  latter  has  been  neutralised. 
Either  there  must  now  be  strict  co-operation,  greater 
definiteness  of  aim,  and  improvement  of  quality  every- 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  127 

where, — or  extinction.  The  Report  made  clear  that  the 
educationalists  on  the  field  see  their  way  to  meet  the 
situation  by  greater  concentration  and  a  more  calculated 
distribution  of  their  work,  provided  the  Church  of 
Christ  rises  to  its  opportunity  and  sends  immediate 
reinforcements,  in  order  to  strengthen  the  educational 
work  of  the  Church  along  the  definitely  limited  lines  of 
which  the  present  situation  allows.  Dr  Ibuka,  in  a  short 
but  powerful  speech,  voiced  and  justified  this  appeal. 
Fully  admitting,  as  a  Japanese,  the  great  results  that 
Christian  education  has  produced,  he  went  on  to  say 
that  existing  schools  and  colleges  do  not  meet  the  present 
demand.  "  Without  a  single  exception  "  he  said  (and 
it  was  the  President  of  the  second  best-known  college 
in  Japan,  the  Meiji  Gakuin,  that  was  speaking), 

"  the  existing  colleges  need  to  be  greatly  strengthened,  both  in  their 
equipment  and  in  their  teaching  force.  .  .  .  But  there  is  a  second 
need,  which  is  equally  urgent  if  not  more  so.  I  mean  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  Christian  University.  ...  Its  establishment  will 
mark  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the  nation,  and  it  may  be  in  the 
history  of  all  Eastern  Asia.   ..." 

And  he  concluded  by  quoting  a  resolution,  passed  by  a 
Conference  held  in  Japan  in  October  1909  representative 
of  all  the  Protestant  missions  and  Japanese  Churches,  re- 
commending unanimously  the  starting  of  this  University. 
"  I  know  we  are  asking  much,"  he  said,  "  but  may  we 
not  '  expect  great  things  from  God  '  ?  "  '  Much  '  is 
a  relative  term.  An  American  delegate  (S.  L.  Gulick) 
surely  spoke  both  sensibly  and  significantly  when  he  said  : 
"  A  million-dollar  institution  in  Japan  for  higher  educa- 
tion will  count  ten  times  as  much  as  a  million-dollar 
institution  in  America  for  the  uplifting  of  the  world  !  " 

This  chapter  has  already  recorded  an  appeal  for  a 
Christian  Higher  College  for  Persia  :    here  is  a  second 


128  EDINBURGH  1910 

similar  appeal  from  Japan  :  and  we  shall  hear,  finally, 
of  a  third  from  China.  The  three  together  made  a  not 
unreasonable  total,  considering  the  importance  of  the 
Edinburgh  Conference  and  the  literally  world-wide 
range  of  the  countries  surveyed  by  this  Commission.  A 
delegate  was  saying  no  more  than  the  bare  truth  when 
he  closed  his  address  with  the  words,  "  The  day  of 
small  things  in  missionary  education  has  gone." 

If  any  testimony  was  needed  to  justify  this  particular 
appeal  from  Japan,  or  to  prove  the  real  relationship 
between  education  and  the  quickening  of  national  life 
in  this  mission  field,  it  was  surely  supplied  by  S.  L. 
Gulick — the  bearer  of  a  great  name  in  the  missionary 
history  of  Japan.  Intervening  at  the  very  close  of  this 
part  of  the  discussion,  he  exclaimed  he  had  two  points 
to  make  in  two  minutes.  One  of  the  two  has  been  quoted 
above.  The  second  was  in  the  highest  degree  important. 
It  was  contained  in  a  letter  which  he  held  in  his  hand, 
from  Marquis  Katsura,  the  Prime  Minister  of  Japan, 
and  addressed  to  President  Harada,  of  the  Doshisha 
College,  who  was  then  present  at  that  moment  in  the 
Conference  -  hall.  It  was  now  read  to  the  dele- 
gates : — 

"  Recognising  the  great  service  of  Doshisha,  through 
its  graduates,  in  our  political,  literary,  and  business, 
as  well  as  religious  circles,  I  am  of  opinion  that  your 
school  has  been  specially  instrumental  in  empha- 
sizing character  and  manhood  in  the  young  men  of 
Japan.  It  is  my  sincere  and  earnest  desire  that  your 
historic  school  may  attain  an  even  greater  develop- 
ment and  serve  the  country  still  more  efficiently  in  the 
years  to  come.  I  take  this  opportunity  to  express 
my  gratitude  toward  the  late  Dr  Neesima,  and  to 
pray  for  the  prosperity  of  Doshisha." 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  129 

When  the  first  statesman  in  Japan  bears  his  witness 
to  the  value  of  Christian  education  in  relation  to  Japanese 
national  life,  it  is  fitting,  surely,  to  add  no  more. 


8. 

Already  in  the  two  previous  days  the  Conference  had 
been  brought  to  feel,  with  an  intensity  that  was  even 
painful,  how  great,  how  utterly  unparalleled  is  the  crisis 
which  China  presents  to  the  Christian  enterprise  to-day. 
And  the  impression  was  very  greatly  deepened  on  this 
third  day.  The  very  fact  that  China  is  traditionally 
a  land  of  educational  system,  of  an  aristocracy  of  letters, 
of  leaders  who  are  leaders  by  virtue  of  their  learning, 
made  it  certain  that  nowhere  would  the  relation  between 
education  and  this  Christianising  of  national  life  be  so 
vital  and  so  all-important  as  in  China. 

"  No  one,"  said  the  Vice-Chairman  of  the  Commission, 
"  can  be  in  China  without  realising  the  intensity  of  the 
intellectual  life  of  that  land,  and  being  at  once  impressed 
by  the  thought  that  any  appeal  to  the  educated  classes 
in  that  land  must  be  made  through  education  ;  and 
that  the  Christian  Church  stands  no  chance  in  China, 
save  as  it  can  raise  up  and  educate  leaders  for  it- 
self." He  went  on  to  point  out  the  significance  and  the 
danger  of  China's  sudden  repudiation  of  the  Confucian 
political  system  as  impracticable.  The  danger  is,  he  said, 
lest  the  Chinese  turn  with  too  all-absorbing  an  enthusiasm 
to  material  things,  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  the  study  of  the 
means  of  its  production.  Now,  it  is  Western  knowledge 
that  has  brought  about  this  change  of  attitude.  And  the 
knowledge  that  China  is  now  seeking  after  what  it  so 
long  refused,  seeking  after  "  practically  everything 
except  that  which  seems  to  us  to  be  the  secret  of  the 
welfare  of  nations,"  multiplies  the  responsibility  of  the 


ISO  EDINBURGH  1910 

Church  in  the  West  to   share  with  China  that    secret 
also. 

Again  and  again,  so  the  Report  informs  us,  did  the 
correspondence  from  China  recur  to  this  point.  "  In 
a  country  like  China,"  said  one  writer  bluntly,  "  a  Church 
of  ignorant  men  cannot  hope  to  have  influence."  And 
the  following  sentence  is  selected  from  many  by  the 
Report  itself  to  sum  up  the  matter  : — 

"  If  Christianity  does  not  speedily  develop  an  educated  ministry, 
it  will  soon  fail  to  command  respect  or  exert  any  great  influence 
over  the  people  and  their  leaders.  Everything  lies  within  the  grasp 
of  Christianity  now,  if  the  best  talent  of  the  native  Church  can  be 
given  good  Christian  educational  advantages." 

It  is  a  crisis.  The  Christian  Church  had  a  start  which 
is  now  bound  to  diminish  every  day,  unless  a  great  new 
effort  is  put  forth.  And  for  this  reason  :  up  to  the 
present  time  the  graduates  of  the  Christian  schools  and 
colleges  were  almost  the  only  men  of  the  new  education 
who  were  available  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  nation. 
On  the  previous  day  the  Conference  had  had  the  most 
striking  testimony  to  the  estimation  in  which  these  men 
are  held  and  the  importance  of  the  careers  now  open  to 
them *  on  all  sides.  But  now  the  Government  has  entered 
the  field  ;  all  over  China  are  springing  up  thousands 
of  schools  and  colleges  which  will  tend  year  by  year 
relatively  to  depress  the  prestige  of  the  mission  in- 
stitutions.    Moreover,  certain   political    disabilities    are 

1  A  matter  which  has  its  difficult  side  to  the  churches  also  :  as 
Dr  Duncan  Main,  the  medical  missionary  of  Hang-chow,  said,  "  The 
demand  from  Government  is  so  great  that  we  cannot  keep  sufficient 
men  to  carry  on  our  own  work.  The  Government  comes  forward 
and  says,  'We  will  give  you  ^15  and  the  Missionary  Society  are 
only  giving  you  £1  '  " — then  with  a  burst  of  humorous  despair — 
"  and  where  is  the  Christianity  to-day  in  China,  or  anywhere  else, 
that  will  stand  temptation  like  that  ?  " 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  131 

being  attached  to  graduates  of  mission  schools,1  though 
even  this  most  serious  obstacle  can  be  surmounted  (the 
Report  maintained)  if  the  standard  of  those  institutions 
can  be  kept  high  : — real  merit  in  the  graduates  will 
ultimately  neutralise  all  disabilities.  Thus  the  position 
is  surely  manifestly  clear.  Every  correspondent  to  the 
Commission  alluded  to  it.  In  a  sentence,  the  position 
is  this  : 

"  To-day  the  leadership  of  Christian  thought,  in  the  making 
of  the  modern  China,  is  a  possibility  ;  but  each  year  makes  it 
less  possible,  for  each  year  sees  the  opposing  forces  increase  and  the 
pro-Christian  influence,  by  comparison,  grow  faint." 

The  reader  will  recall  the  almost  sensational  speech 
of  the  Chinese  delegate  on  the  first  day.  And  he  will 
now  be  able  to  appreciate  why  such  a  speech  was  justified. 

Thus  almost  everything  which  was  said  about  the 
situation  in  India,  and  the  appeal  which  that  situation 
creates,  might  be  applied  without  change,  but  with  an 
intensified  note  of  urgency,  to  China.  As  in  India,  so 
in  China,  we  learn  that  "  the  demand  upon  Christian 
schools  has  suddenly  become  more  than  we  can  meet. 
In  the  attempt  to  meet  that  demand,  the  pressure  has 
become  so  great,  and  the  schools  are  so  miserably  staffed, 
that  we  are  in  danger  of  losing  sight  of  the  real  end 
and  of  failing  to  meet  that  which  we  see  to  be  the  real 
need  of  the  people  in  this  emergency."  As  from  India, 
so  from  China  comes  the  clamant  demand  for  an  un- 
precedented reinforcement  at  this  time,  and  the  acute 
recognition  of  the  need  for  co-operation  on  the  field 
itself.  These  two  words  in  fact  almost  sum  up  the 
solution  of  the  problem — Reinforce  ;   Co-operate. 

But  in  India  a  fully  developed  system  of  universities 
and  affiliated  colleges  already  exists.     In    China  there 

1  This  assertion,  however,  was  contradicted  later  on  in  the  Confer- 
ence by  a  Chinese  delegate. 


132  EDINBURGH  1910 

is  no  such  system,  and  exactly  here  lies  the  supreme 
opportunity  of  Christendom,  and  the  supreme  call  for 
co-operation.  If  Robert  College,  Constantinople,  and 
the  Protestant  College,  Beyrout,  have  been  able  to  accom- 
plish so  much,  what  fruit  might  not  be  expected  from 
the  establishing  of  similar  institutions  in  every  province 
in  China  ?  Already  the  missionary  Societies  in  the 
field  are  drawing  together  their  forces,  and  by  the 
federation  of  existing  colleges  are  bringing  into  being 
universities  that  will  train  men  up  to  the  B.A.  standard. 
But  in  addition  to  these  there  is  call  for  at  least  one 
fully-equipped  University  in  the  complete  sense  of  the 
term.  This  grand  scheme  has  already  gone  beyond 
mere  talk  :  but  it  can  only  be  carried  through  by  a  great 
effort  of  co-operation — not  only  co-operation  on  the 
field,  but  even  more  at  home. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  William  Jennings  Bryan 
intervened  in  the  debate.  A  storm  of  applause  greeted 
him ;  but  even  notables  came  under  the  seven-minutes 
rule  at  Edinburgh,  and  with  the  fear  of  the  bell  in  his 
heart  the  great  man  waved  away  the  applause  : — "  I 
appreciate  your  welcome,"  he  said,  "but  I  need  the  time!  " 
The  speaker  was  that  very  evening  to  hold  an  Edinburgh 
audience  for  seventy-five  minutes  in  a  reasoned  defence 
of  missions,  and  a  passionate  personal  testimony  for  the 
Christian  enterprise  and  for  Christ.  On  this  after- 
noon he  spoke  for  Christian  education  in  China  : — "  No 
part  of  our  work  in  the  foreign  field/'  he  said, "  impressed 
me  more  than  the  work  that  these  colleges  are  doing/' 
The  cost  of  them  per  head  is  the  merest  fraction  of  the 
cost  in  the  West,  and  yet  the  influence  they  must  exert 
in  the  present  crisis  is  beyond  calculation.  And  then 
the  statesman  spoke  out  his  mind  : — 

"  These  countries  that  are  educating  the  world  are 
Christian  nations,  and  by  sending  out  these  Christian 


CHRISTIANISATION  OF  NATIONAL  LIFE  133 

educators  into  all  lands  these  Christian  nations 
demonstrate  that  they  are  not  afraid  to  lift  other  nations 
out  of  darkness,  and  put  them  on  the  high  road  to 
prosperity.  It  shows  that  they  are  not  jealous  of 
these  nations  in  their  growing  strength.  We  hear 
of  a  yellow  peril,  and  we  are  asked,  if  China  is  awakened 
and  people  are  educated,  what  will  become  of  the  rest 
of  the  world  ?  The  Christian  people  of  this  world 
believe  that  there  is  but  one  yellow  peril  on  this  earth, 
and  that  is  the  lust  for  gold!  " 

The  words  gleamed  in  the  subdued  light  of  the  hall — 
"  yellow,"  "  gold," — like  the  ominous  glint  of  the 
Rheingold  itself.  .  .  .  The  Conference  remembered 
the  time  when  at  one  of  America's  Gargantuan  political 
conventions  an  almost  unknown  man  leaped  suddenly 
with  a  phrase  into  world-wide  fame.  In  that  phrase, 
too,  glinted  the  yellow  of  the  gold — and  then,  as  now, 
it  was  used  to  symbolise  and  express  the  speaker's 
unconquerable  suspicion  of  the  commercial  spirit, 
when  that  spirit  is  not  governed  and  controlled  by  the 
Christian  idea  of  service. 

The  first,  nevertheless,  though  it  gained  a  nomination 
lost  an  election.  Perhaps  its  spirit  was  sounder  than 
its  economics.  But  perhaps,  too,  in  the  long  reckoning 
of  time  and  of  eternity,  that  loss — to  person  and  to 
party — will  go  for  nothing,  and  less  than  nothing,  were 
the  second  to  inspire  that  great  Republic  of  the  West, 
now,  to-day,  and  without  delay,  to  christianise  the 
national  life  of  China  by  one  supreme  effort  of  Christian 
enterprise. 

To  christianise  the  national  life  of  China !  Would 
not  that,  more  than  any  one  other  thing,  mean  the 
conquest  of  the  world  for  Christ? 


CHAPTER  X 

"The  Missionary  Message  in  relation  to  the 
non-Christian  Religions  " 

The  eight  days,  on  which  the  eight  Reports  were  con- 
sidered at  the  Conference,  were  divided  by  a  Sunday 
into  two  equal  groups  of  four,  the  first  of  which,  speaking 
broadly,  dealt  with  the  peoples  and  religions  that  form 
the  objective  of  missionary  work  ;  the  second  with 
problems  that  chiefly  concern  the  Societies  and  Boards 
that  prosecute  such  work,  and  so  with  the  problem  of  the 
home-base  itself. 

On  the  last  day  of  the  first  group  a  Report  was  taken 
which  formed  a  transition  from  the  one  to  the  other. 
In  discussing  the  Missionary  Message  in  relation  to  non- 
Christian  religions,  the  Conference  was  brought  back  to 
the  world-survey  with  which  it  started,  but  this  time 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  spiritual  attitude  of  the  races 
and  nations  previously  surveyed.  While  the  discussion 
of  the  Missionary  Message  raised  vital  issues,  which  led 
forward  to  the  consideration  of  the  spiritual  attitude  of 
the  Christian  community  at  the  home-base  itself. 


By  common  consent  the  Report  that  was  now  laid  on  the 
table  of  the  Conference  and  presented  by  the  Chairman 
of  the  Commission,  Professor  D.  S.  Cairns,  was  one  of  the 
most  remarkable,  perhaps  the  most  remarkable,  of  a 
great  series.  No  less  than  two  hundred  answers  were 
134 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  135 

sent  in  from  the  field  in  response  to  the  questions  sent 
out  by  the  Commission,  and  the  Chairman  testified  that 
not  a  few  of  those  were  of  a  length  and  an  importance  that 
would  have  j ustified  their  separate  publication.  The  Com- 
mission, in  fact,  had  been  presented  with  the  results  of 
years  of  thought,  lavished  by  the  deepest  thinkers  in  the 
field  upon  the  work  of  their  lives.  Such  materials  could 
not  have  failed  to  react  powerfully  on  the  Commission 
which  had  the  task  of  studying  and  co-ordinating  them. 
This  is  evident  on  every  page  of  the  Report.  Towards 
its  almost  lyrical  close  we  read  : — 

"  We  cannot  conclude  the  review  of  these  reports  from  the  field 
of  action  without  recording  the  deep  and  solemn  impression  which 
they  have  made  upon  our  mind.  The  spectacle  of  the  advance 
of  the  Christian  Church  along  many  lines  of  action  to  the  conquest 
of  the  five  great  religions  of  the  modern  world  is  one  of  singular 
interest  and  grandeur.     Vexilla  Regis  prodeunt  !  " 

Like  all  masterpieces,  the  interest  of  the  Report  steadily 
increases  up  to  the  very  last  sentence.  The  most  striking 
and  essential  passages  of  the  reports  from  the  field  have 
been  detached  from  their  matrix,  collected  and  welded 
together,  not  however  into  dry  synopses,  but  into 
well  articulated  wholes. — There  are  successive  chapters, 
constructed  in  this  way,  on  Animism,  Chinese  Religions, 
Japanese  Religions,  Islamism,  and  Hinduism,  which 
form  the  five-fold  division  of  the  entire  subject- 
matter.  Here  the  interest,  great  throughout,  rises 
steadily,  reaching  the  highest  point  in  the  last  division 
on  Hinduism.  Nevertheless  in  the  next  and  con- 
cluding chapter  it  takes  a  yet  higher  flight :  the  five- 
fold division  is  gone  over  once  more,  but  this  time 
to  apply  to  each  of  the  five  certain  far-reaching  prin- 
ciples which  had  gradually  been  distilled  from  the  study 
of  the  whole  subject-matter  itself.  And  then,  finally, 
from  the  heights  thus  gained,  Christianity  itself  is  passed 


136  EDINBURGH  1910 

in  review  ;  the  religion  of  Christ — as  it  was  (and  is) 
in  Him  ;  as  it  has  been  actually  realised  ;  and  as  it 
might  be,  if  the  Church  responds  to  the  Macedonian  call 
of  to-day.  The  paragraphs  succeed  each  other,  ever 
climbing  to  height  on  height,  with  the  sure  grip  and  foot- 
hold of  the  Alpinist  at  the  last  ascents  before  the  top, 
and  with  a  similar  disciplined  acceleration,  revealing 
a  similar  intensification  of  passion  within :  until  with  a 
shout,  if  one  so  may  say,  the  alpenstock  is  struck  into 
the  snow  on  the  topmost  peak — the  last  sentence  is 
reached ;  and  in  the  rhythm  and  beauty  of  its  two  clauses 
not  only  the  cadence  but  the  absolute  climax  is  attained. 
That  sentence — in  which  the  thing  ceases  to  be  a  report 
and  becomes  literature — is  no  casual  aphorism  that 
achieves  a  random  success.  The  whole  material  of  the 
Report  is  in  that  sentence,  fused  by  white  heat  and 
intensest  pressure  into  a  gem. 

One  would  be  disposed  to  hazard  a  prophecy  that  the 
concluding  chapter  to  the  Report  of  this  Commission  will 
mark  an  epoch — in  ways  which  it  is  the  chief  object  of 
this  chapter  to  indicate. 


2. 

It  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  discussion  would 
reach  the  level  of  the  report.  It  has  already  been  said 
that  the  debates  rose  or  fell  to  different  levels.  On  the 
Church  on  the  Mission-Field,  for  example,  the  level  was 
uniformly  high.  On  this  day  the  level  was  moderate.  It 
would  have  taken  the  delegates  at  least  twice  the  time 
during  which  the  Report  had  actually  been  in  their 
hands,  to  consider  it  fully  and  realise  its  full  importance  ; 
and  consequently  the  discussion  did  little  more  than 
illustrate  some  of  its  important  details.  Probably  the 
only  way  by  which  its  central  message  could  have  been 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  137 

brought  out  at  the  discussion  itself,  would  have  been 
to  read  its  concluding  chapter  aloud  at  the  outset 
of  the  day,  and  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  time  in  listen- 
ing to  a  series  of  comments  by  chosen  speakers, 
divided  by  intervals  for  silent  thought  and  solemn 
supplication. 

In  this  chapter  it  will  therefore  probably  be  best  to 
continue  our  examination  of  the  Report  itself,  mentioning 
from  time  to  time  passages  in  the  discussion  that  threw 
light  upon  it. 


The  non-Christian  religions  have  been  variously  re- 
garded by  Christian  men.  Some  have  considered  them 
as  perfect  specimens  of  absolute  error,  masterpieces  of 
hell's  invention,  which  Christianity  was  simply  called 
upon  to  oppose,  uproot  and  destroy.  A  closer  study  of 
Scripture  itself,  and  also  of  the  history  of  the  earliest 
missions,  has,  however,  convinced  most  people  that  this 
view  is  simply  the  exaggeration  of  one  extreme  aspect 
of  a  wide  question.  And  while  of  course  theories  as  to 
the  origin  and  significance  of  the  non-Christian  religions 
still  vary,  there  is  a  general  consensus  that,  representing 
as  they  do  so  many  attempted  solutions  of  life's  problem, 
they  must  be  approached  with  very  real  sympathy  and 
respect ;  that  they  must  be  studied,  if  only  to  bring  the 
evangelist  into  touch  with  the  minds  of  his  hearers. 
More  than  that,  the  conviction  has  grown  that  their 
"  confused  cloud-world"  will  be  found  to  be  "  shot  through 
and  through  with  broken  lights  of  a  hidden  sun."  And, 
these  things  being  true,  another  conviction  has  dawned  : — 
Christianity,  the  religion  of  the  Light  of  the  World,  can 
ignore  no  lights  however  "  broken  " —  it  must  take  them 
all  into  account,  absorb  them  all  into  its  central  glow. 


138  EDINBURGH  1910 

Nay/since  the  Church  of  Christ  itself  is  partially  involved 
in  mists  of  unbelief,  failing  aspiration,  imperfect  realisa- 
tion, this  quest  of  hers  among  the  non-Christian  religions, 
this  discovery  of  their  "  broken  lights  "  may  be  to  her  the 
discovery  of  facets  of  her  own  truth,  forgotten  or  half- 
forgotten — perhaps  even  never  perceived  at  all  save  by 
the  most  prophetic  of  her  sons.  Thus  "  by  going  into  all 
the  world  "  Christ's  Church  may  recover  all  the  light  that 
is  in  Christ,  and  become,  like  her  Head,  as  it  is  His  will 
she  should  become, — Lux  Mundi./y 

Such  was  the  working  principle  which  guided  the 
spiritual  enterprise  and  quest  now  set  forth  in  the  pages 
of  the  Report  of  this  Commission.  Both  the  corre- 
spondence received  by  the  Commission  from  all  over  the 
mission-field,  and  the  speeches  that  were  delivered  at  the 
discussion,  revealed  clearly  that  missionaries  everywhere 
do  their  work  animated  by  this  working  principle,  how- 
ever variously  it  is  expressed  and  applied.  As  Robert  E. 
Speer  put  it,  in  the  address  that  closed  the  day's  dis- 
cussion, not  only  did  it  seem  fairer  that  the  Commission 
should  compare  best  with  best,  and  not  with  worst  ; 
but  also  it  is  the  very  strength  of  the  conviction  that 
Christ  is  best,  that  emboldens  Christians  to  call  with  such 
confidence  on  the  non-Christian  religions  to  produce  their 
best,  and  lay  it  down  beside  the  absolute  Best  of  all. 
"We  hold  to  the  truth  of  the  absoluteness  of  Christianity," 
cried  the  speaker,  "  but  does  that  truth  hold  us  ?  " 
Moreover,  practical  wisdom  itself  dictates  this  course  ;  for 
the  question  is  not  how  the  missionary  may  convince 
himself  that  Christ  is  best,  but  how  he  may  convince 
non-Christians — men  out  of  touch  with  his  whole  range  of 
ideal  and  aspiration  and  thought.  Clearly,  nothing  but 
a  very  intimate  knowledge  of  their  point  of  view  will 
enable  him  to  present  to  them  his  message  acceptably  or 
even  intelligibly. 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  139 


To  what  had  the  Report  called  the  attention  of  Con- 
ference in  respect  of  the  five  great  religious  systems  into 
which  its  subject-matter  was  divided  ?  Animism  was 
treated  of  first.  This  is  the  generic  name  for  the  re- 
ligious beliefs  of  more  or  less  backward  or  degraded 
peoples  all  over  the  world  ;  a  system  the  chief  feature 
of  which  is  a  belief  in  the  occult  power  of  the  souls  of 
individuals,  and  their  capability  of  continued  existence 
after  death  ;  and  in  the  similar  power  of  other  spirits, 
ranging  from  the  spirits  of  plants  or  animals  upward  to 
those  of  powerful  deities.  Negroes  all  over  the  continent 
of  Africa  ;  "  Indians  "  in  the  Americas  ;  Aboriginal 
tribes  in  India  and  other  parts  of  Asia  ;  and  Islanders 
from  all  the  tropical  and  southern  oceans,  hold  various 
forms  of  animistic  beliefs.  Indeed  the  religions  of  China 
and  Japan  are,  to  some  extent,  but  civilised  and  moralised 
forms  of  animism  ;  indeed  it  may  even  be  said  that  queer 
vestiges  of  it  are  to  be  found  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe, 
wherever,  in  fact,  the  traditional  superstitions  of  country- 
folk still  linger  on. 

The  Commission  had  had  the  advantage  of  a  notable 
recent  addition  to  the  large  body  of  literature  that  exists 
on  this  theme,  a  work  by  the  younger  Warneck,  named 
The  Living  Forces  of  the  Gospel,  and,  as  has  already  been 
narrated  in  due  place,  the  Conference  had  the  advantage 
of  the  presence  of  the  author  in  its  midst.  His  address 
at  the  Conference  was  a  valuable  commentary  on  the 
book  itself — a  rare  compound  of  the  close  scientific 
treatment  characteristic  of  Germany,  and  the  rich  pietism, 
no  less  truly  and  invaluably  characteristic  of  that  noble 
race.  May  that  race  yet  more  fully  join  to  its  scientific 
pre-eminence  its  ancient  spiritual  insight  !  Would  it 
not  then  truly  lead  Christendom  in  the  spiritual  battle 


140  EDINBURGH  1910 

that  impends  ? — Herr  Warneck's  experience  had  chiefly 
been  gained  among  the  Battaks,  the  pagan  remnant 
of  Islamised  Sumatra.  And  a  mass  of  other  evidence,  sent 
from  parts  of  the  world  as  widely  separated  as  possible, 
went  to  show  the  justice  of  certain  important  conclusions 
drawn  out  by  the  young  Licentiat. 

The  most  striking  one  of  these  was  that  the  purely 
theological  parts  of  Christianity  are  at  once  the  most 
effective,  the  most  easily  grasped,  and  the  most  quickly 
fruitful,  among  animistic  peoples  !  The  missionary 
finds  the  pagan's  mind  distracted  by  the  multiplicity 
of  their  demons  and  contradictory  cross-currents  of  unseen 
malignity :  .  .  .  and  he  preaches — One  God :  One 
accessible  Father-Spirit  of  unalterable  good-will  to  him  ! 
The  doctrine  comes  as  an  intellectual  as  well  as  a  spiritual 
rest  to  him — and  with  what  deep  feeling  did  the  scholar- 
missionary  depict  the  reality  of  that  rest  !  Again,  he 
finds  the  whole  life  of  the  heathen  devoted  to  a  complex 
and  ineffectual  system  of  securing  escape,  deliverance, 
from  a  literally  clinging  cloud  of  hostile  influences  :  .  .  . 
and  he  preaches  to  him — One  Saviour  and  Deliverer. 
Or,  he  rinds  him  occupied  by  the  thought  of  the  spirits 
of  his  ancestors  and  other  dead  people  :  and  he  preaches 
to  him — the  Resurrection  of  the  Saviour  and  of  men. 
The  venerable  Norwegian  missionary,  Dahle,  told  how 
this  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection,  so  invariably  preached 
by  Paul  to  the  pagans  and  animists  of  his  day,  comes 
home  with  like  tremendous  force  to  the  animists  of 
to-day. 

And  now  what  of  the  moral  results  ?  They  appear 
in  due  season  after  this  spiritual  and  intellectual  en- 
franchisement !  They  must  be  patiently  waited  for  : 
they  will  surely  come,  when  the  theological  teaching  has 
had  sufficient  time  to  sink  into  their  minds  and  hearts. 
The  true  idea,  One  Living  God,  awakens  and  informs  the 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  141 

conscience.  This  is  certainly  an  exceedingly  striking 
comment  on  the  doctrine  of  those  many  who  say  that 
backward  tribes  must  be  civilised  first,  and  that  of  all 
mortal  things  it  is  useless  bringing  them — theology. 

And  here  the  last  chapter  of  the  Report  shows  the 
deep  importance  of  the  lesson  which  the  Christian  faith 
itself  may  learn  from  even  animism,  surely  the  humblest 
of  all  possible  teachers  !  "  The  whole  analysis,"  it  says, 
"  is  deeply  suggestive  for  Christian  theology.  It  raises 
the  question  whether  the  Christian  Church  in  civilised 
lands  is  using  sufficiently  the  elemental  truths  of  Revela- 
tion— the  unity,  the  omnipotence,  the  omnipresence,  and 
the  availability  of  God."  The  animist  sees  his  environ- 
ment riddled  and  shot  through  and  through  by  spirits  : — 
does  the  Christian  see  his  environment  steeped  through 
and  through  by  Spirit  ?  a  world  controlled  throughout 
by  the  Spirit  of  a  Personal  God,  with  whom  the  human 
spirit  should  be  in  completest  touch  by  faith  ? 

This  example  of  the  method  of  the  Report,  as  it  deals 
with  the  humblest  and  least  sublime  of  all  the  five  great 
creeds  which  it  considers,  may  very  well  serve  us  a 
pattern  of  its  treatment  throughout. 


The  religious  crisis  in  China  to-day  may  be  briefly 
indicated  by  the  fact  that  at  the  bottom  of  its  religion, 
at  the  bottom  of  that  great  and  apparently  indissoluble 
system  of  Confucian  morality,  is  this  very  animism, 
in  the  form  of  ancestor- worship.  And  will  modern 
science  with  its  conception  of  Nature,  asked  the  Report, 
spare  for  long  the  cosmology  which  goes  with  the 
ancestor- worship,  the  popular  pantheon,  the  superstitions 
of  animism  ?  In  thousands  of  schools  and  colleges  all  over 
China  to-day  a  curriculum  is  gradually  being  introduced, 


142  EDINBURGH  1910 

which  as  surely  as  the  night  follows  the  day  will  sub- 
stitute for  the  conception  of  spirit-forces  Physical  Force, 
and  for  the  energies  of  daemons  the  one  impersonal 
Energy  which  the  whole  system  presupposes.  "  What, 
then,"  cries  the  Report,  "  can  avert  the  appalling  spiritual 
disaster  of  this  great  race  going  over  to  naturalism  ?  .  .  . 
Who  can  measure  the  tragedy  of  such  a  climax  ?  .  .  .  There 
is  only  one  force  that  can  prevent  this  disaster,  and  that 
is  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ  !  "  Already,  as  the  Report 
goes  on  most  truly  to  point  out,  "  the  one  gleam  of 
Christian  idealism  which  has  come  to  China  from  the 
West,  through  all  the  rapacity  and  violence  of  national 
policy,  has  been  the  missionary  enterprise.  Here  she  has 
at  least  seen  something  of  the  faith  that  can  remove 
mountains,  and  the  love  that  never  faileth.  But  has 
there  yet  been  that  demonstration  of  the  supreme  might 
and  reality  of  the  Eternal  which  can  alone  break  the 
slumber  of  her  past  ages  ?  " 

The  last  question  is  in  very  truth  a  home  thrust.  China 
is  not  the  only  country  which  is  face  to  face  with  a 
teaching  that  regards  Nature  as  a  closed-system  ;  Sub- 
stance as  the  one  ultimate  reality  ;  and  all  forces  and 
energies,  even  life  itself  with  its  supreme  manifestations 
of  consciousness  and  goodness,  as  so  many  functions 
of  that  one  originless,  endless,  inexplicable  reality — 
substance,  the  alpha  and  omega,  the  lord  god 
almighty  of  the  naturalistic  creed.  This  is  the  avowed 
theology,  if  such  a  word  has  any  meaning  in  this  context, 
of  thousands  throughout  Europe,  and  the  implicit 
substratum  of  the  thinking  of  many  ten  times  more. 
Philosopher,  dramatist,  and  novelist  have,  in  fact,  done, 
and  are  doing,  far  more  than  pure  scientists  in  making 
these  doctrines  public  property, — more  even  than  the 
self-invited  interpreters  of  science,  the  atheist  lecturer, 
preacher,  or  journalist.     In  translations   and   sixpenny 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  143 

editions  these  doctrines  are  crossing  every  sea,  are  finding 
their  way  into  the  heart  of  India,  China  and  Japan. 
Some  of  their  teachers  have,  it  is  true,  attempted  to 
raise  these  doctrines  to  the  level  of  a  religion  :  but  the 
attempt  never  seems  to  go  far  or  to  be  sustained  for 
long.  And  yet,  as  the  Report  says,  "  all  history  shows 
that  without  religion  no  civilisation  can  live." 

Here,  then,  is  the  supreme  crisis,  not  of  China  only,  but 
of  the  Church.  If  the  Church  can  surmount  this  wave 
to  which  apparently  the  whole  aggregate  result  of 
modern  scientific  research  is  giving  volume,  mass,  and 
momentum,  would  it  ever  thereafter  have  anything  else 
to  fear  from  without  ? 

The  question  is  a  home  one  to  the  Church,  as  appears 
from  an  illuminating  sentence  in  the  Report  : 

"  Here  is  the  very  core  of  the  problem  of  the  future  in  China. 
It  has  been  truly  said  by  a  distinguished  modern  thinker  (Eucken) 
that  the  real  strength  of  naturalism  lies,  not  in  the  argumentative 
case  for  it,  but  in  the  weakness  of  the  spiritual  life  in  the  heart  of 
mankind.  .  .  .  When  faith  fails,  naturalism  is  the  one  alternative 
theory  and  practice,  and  when  faith  triumphs  there  is  no  place 
left  for  naturalism." 

And  the  Report  sums  up  the  position  of  affairs  in 
these  profound  words  : 

"  Is  it  not  then  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,  that  what 
this  great  race  needs  above  all  else  is  that  elemental  faith,  which  is 
surer  of  eternity  than  of  time,  and  which  draws  from  these  ex- 
haust] ess  fountains  so  great  a  vitality  of  love  for  men,  that  morality 
ceases  to  be  law  because  it  is  the  very  breath  of  life." 

We  shall  see,  before  the  close  of  this  chapter,  that 
there  have  been  times  when  a  community  did  actually 
rise  to  the  height  of  this  possibility.  If  formerly,  why  not 
again  ? — Is  Edinburgh,  1910,  to  prove  the  beginning  of 
the  answer  to  this  question  ? 

Several   speakers   brought   out   very   strikingly   how 


144  EDINBURGH  1910 

Christianity  with  its  message  can  directly  meet  the 
manifested  cravings  of  China.  For  example,  Tong 
Tsing-en,  the  Chinese  professor  from  North  China,  stand- 
ing before  the  audience  in  the  rich  blue  silks  of  his 
native  land,  showed  clearly  how  completely  the  Christian 
ethic,  if  lived,  fulfils  and  satisfies  the  Confucians  at 
every  point  of  personal,  domestic,  or  social  life  :  how 
the  study  of  the  Confucian  classics  should  therefore  by 
no  means  be  discontinued — they  are  a  national  literature 
which  Christianity  need  not  displace  just  because  it 
fulfils  it.  He  also  showed — and  it  was  a  striking  con- 
firmation of  a  result  that  the  Indian  section  yielded — 
that  Christianity  could  also  fulfil  the  Buddhist  demand 
for  purity,  for  sacrifice,  for  separation,  by  separating 
from  sin  while  avoiding  the  fatal  Buddhistic  distrust  of 
life  itself.  Another  speaker,  from  South  China,  showed 
how  the  reverence  of  China  for  fatherhood  was  fulfilled  by 
the  doctrine  of  the  Father  "  from  whom  every  Father- 
hood in  heaven  and  earth  is  named  " — fulfilling,  indeed, 
the  vague  Chinese  belief  in  the  "  Venerable  Heavenly 
Father,"  about  whom  nevertheless  Confucius  maintained 
so  close  a  reserve.  And  a  younger  man  from  Western 
China  pointed  out  the  point  of  contact  furnished  by  the 
social  idea  of  the  Christian  brotherhood,  with  the  Chinese 
sense  of  the  solidarity  of  the  family,  the  nation,  and  the 
community,  and  with  the  Chinese  conviction  that  the 
individual  neither  lives  nor  dies  "  unto  himself."   .   .   . 


6. 

Both  what  the  Report  brought  out  in  its  chapter  on  the 
Japanese  religions  and  what  came  out  in  the  debate, 
made  it  evident  that  practically  the  whole  of  what  has 
been  said  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  applies  with  equal 
force  to  the  nation  which  at  present  holds  the  hegemony 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  145 

of  the  East.  It  is  true  that  there  are  elements  in  the 
thought-life  of  Japan  that  are  giving  to  the  old  ideas, 
and  for  some  considerable  time  may  continue  to  give,  a 
greater  permanence  than  they  are  likely  to  have  in  China  ; 
for  instance,  the  mystical  regard  of  the  Japanese  for 
the  person  of  the  Emperor,  which  so  closely  knits  that 
smallcompact  country  together  and  thus  helps  to  establish 
its  fundamental  animism.  But  from  another  point  of 
view,  Japan  has  already  reached  a  more  advanced  stage 
in  naturalism,  advanced  enough,  in  fact,  to  make  her 
have  serious  doubts  as  to  its  ability  to  save  for  her  her 
moral  and  social  life.  Count  Okuma  has  described  the 
welter  in  which  Japanese  thought  finds  itself,  having 
abandoned  so  much  of  the  old,  without  taking  to  itself 
anything  new  with  which  to  fill  the  gap.  Equally, 
therefore,  to  Japan,  as  to  her  great  neighbour,  applies  the 
beautiful  sad  sentence  from  the  Report, 

"  Never  surely  was  richer  freight  derelict  on  the  great 
waters  of  time." 

And  it  is  Christianity  and  no  other  to  whom  is  offered 
the  opportunity  of  a  salvage  beyond  all  parallel.  Once 
and  again  the  Japanese  nation  has  half-turned  to  the 
one  gleam  of  idealism  that  had  reached  her  in  Christianity 
alone,  from  the  West,  and  asked  herself  whether  she 
might  not  in  following  that  gleam  guide  her  uncertain 
steps.  And  still  to-day  Christianity,  if  anything,  holds 
the  field.  Mohammedanism  has  not  a  chance,  mercifully 
for  humanity,  although  in  the  Near  East  voices  are  heard 
inviting  Japan  to  assume  the  hegemony  of  Islam.  But 
"  Christian  morality,"  the  Bishop  of  Ossory  said,  "is 
enshrining  itself  in  the  hearts  of  the  Japanese  people  ; 
and  we  have  it  on  good  evidence  that  there  must  be  at 
least  one  million  people  among  the  educated  classes  of 
Japan  who  think  in  terms  of  Christian  morality  as  regards 
the  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  daily  life." 


146  EDINBURGH  1910 

Two  things  more  than  anything  else,  it  was  pointed  out, 
keep  Japan  back  :  first  the  difficulty  the  Japanese  mind 
has  in  placing  the  Emperor  in  any  category  that  makes 
him  second — even  to  the  King  of  Kings.  This  surely  is  a 
sentiment  that  can  hardly  escape  gradual  modification. 
But  the  second  obstacle  is  indeed  serious  :  as  Galen  M. 
Fisher,  a  well-known  and  successful  worker  among  young 
Japanese,  phrased  it,  it  is  "  the  unpractical  nature  of 
Christian  philosophy  .  .  .  and  its  inability  to  dominate  the 
life  of  our  western  civilisation."  So  here  once  more  the  same 
supreme  challenge  to  the  Churchwas  heard  !,  the  same 
challenge  under  another  form.  On  the  very  first  evening 
Dr  Coffin  of  New  York  had  most  uncompromisingly 
pointed  to  the  failure  of  western  Christianity  to  solve  her 
social  question,  as  well  as  to  Christianise  the  foreign  and 
colonising  policies  of  the  western  nations.  And  another 
speaker  told  of  the  evil  impression  made  by  our  cities 
on  Japanese  observers  and  the  impossibility  they  found, 
in  consequence,  of  believing  that  the  religion  of  the  West 
had  within  it  the  power  to  be  the  social  salvation  of  the 
East  :  the  only  off-set  to  this  humiliation  being  the 
acknowledged  supremacy  of  the  Christian  home.  But 
is  not  this  fatal  weakness  only  an  application  of  the 
radical  weakness  that  the  consideration  of  the  Chinese 
problem  had  already  brought  to  view,  the  failure  of 
modern  Christendom  to  rise  to  faith  in  a  God  who  is  able 
to  transform  the  social  system  also  when  man's  faith 
liberates  His  saving  energies,  to  sustain  it  as  surely  as  the 
solar  system  is  sustained  by  His  might  ?  If  this  be  so, 
we  have  here  only  one  more  instance  of  the  salutary 
reaction  of  the  missionary  enterprise  on  the  life  of  the 
Church  at  home.  The  missionary  enterprise  may  compel 
the  Church  to  seek  and  find  God,  and  in  so  doing  solve 
her  own  social  question  also.  In  a  word,  "  World 
evangelisation  is  essential  to  Christian  conquest  at  home. 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  147 

The  only  faith  which  will  conquer  Europe  and  America 
is  the  faith  heroic  enough  to  subdue  the  peoples  of  the 
non-Christian  world."  "  Only  a  gospel  that  is  laid  down 
upon  all  the  life  of  man  will  enable  it  to  deal  with  any 
of  the  problems  of  mankind." 


This  chapter  does  not  aim  at  more  than  to  interpret 
to  the  reader  the  central  thought  that  inspired  the 
whole  of  the  Report  of  this  Commission,  and  the  debate 
thereon.  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  be  exhaustive.  It 
is  as  impossible  to  say  even  a  little  on  all  the  five  im- 
portant divisions  of  the  whole  subject.  The  sections  on 
Islam  and  Hinduism,  for  example,  are  of  greater  intrinsic 
interest,  because  of  greater  intrinsic  religious  and  philo- 
sophical importance,  than  those  which  have  been  dwelt 
upon  in  this  chapter.  For  Eastern  philosophy  and 
religious  thought  had  its  home  in  India.  It  was 
Hinduism  that  supplied  the  Commission  with  both 
the  greater  part,  and  the  most  suggestive  part, 
of  its  material.  It  was  in  Islam  that  Eastern  theism 
has  shown  its  mightiest  power,  and  actually  within 
the  Christian  era  erected  under  the  very  eyes  of  an 
impotent  Christendom  a  new  theology  and  a  new  social 
system,  denying  (though  all  unwittingly)  the  deepest 
Christian  verities,  and  professing  blindness  to  the  highest 
Christian  ideals  ! 

It  must  therefore  be  enough  to  point  out  in  this 
chapter,  how  the  consideration  of  these  two,  at  opposite 
poles  though  they  lie  to  each  other,  simply  brought  out 
more  clearly  the  fundamental  truth  that  the  entire 
enquiry  has  elicited.  In  the  case  of  Hinduism,  both 
Report  and  discussion  showed  that  the  same  heightened 
realisation  of  a  Living  God  who  is  Spirit,  which  was  seen 


148  EDINBURGH  1910 

to  be  the  grand  desideratum  for  the  salvation  of  China 
(and  Europe)  from  a  physical,  naturalistic  pantheism, 
is  necessary  to  save  India.  For  the  pantheism  of  Hindu- 
ism, though  it  is  the  very  reverse  of  naturalistic,  is  for 
all  its  spirituality  paralysing  to  effort  and  joy,  to  social 
beatitude  and  the  spirit  of  service,  and  to  all,  in  short, 
that  stands  for  life.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  the  very 
refusal  of  India  to  see  in  the  closed-system  of  the  physical 
universe  anything  more  than  a  delusion,  constitutes  a 
hint,  a  challenge,  an  inspiration  to  Christian  thought, — 
not  indeed  to  deny  reality  to  that  universe,  but  to  assert 
that  it  is  only  real  because  there  is  One  who  is  Spirit 
transcending  it,  containing  it  and  not  contained  by  it. 
But  where  is  to  be  found  the  organ  whereby  that  Spirit 
becomes  articulate  on  earth  ?  the  voice  which  shall  tell 
to  India  that  with  God's  infinite  Spirit  she  maybe  united, 
and  so  be  redeemed  from  sin  within  and  circumstance 
without — not  to  a  Nirvana  which  is  the  negation  of  life, 
but  to  God  who  is  Life  ;  the  one  in  whom  social  love  and 
joy  are  perfected  ;  and  in  whom  self-surrender  becomes 
the  realisation  of  all  selves  ?  Who  but  the  Church  of 
Christ  can  voice  that  message,  which  her  Head  once  and 
for  all  has  sounded  ?  It  is  His  Church  who  is  called 
to  be  to  the  human  race  both  voice  and  eyesight 
and  hearing.  Thus  once  more  we  are  brought  back 
to  the  same  point.  The  very  failures  of  these  non- 
Christian  religions  reveal  to  the  Christian  church 
what  she  has  in  Christ,  available  and  at  her  disposal, 
but  as  yet  unrealised. 

And  Islam, — perhaps  Edinburgh,  1910,  will  lead  Chris- 
tianity to  apply  even  to  Islam,  the  great  antagonist, 
this  same  principle,  and  to  find  it  pointing  her  this  same 
way.  For  it  was  its  living  faith  in  a  personal  God  that 
created  Islam,  and  alone  accounts  for  its  marvellous 
record  through  thirteen  centuries.     And  it  is  this  living 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  149 

faith,  intenser,  more  intimate  and  more  comprehensive 
than  sight,  that  the  body  of  Christ  has  to  recover,  in 
order  that  her  witness  may  be  with  demonstration  and 
"  with  the  Finger  of  God,"  whether  in  the  lands  of  Islam, 
or  of  Vishnu,  or  of  Confucius,  or  of  Buddha,  or  those 
whose  dim  faiths  are  linked  with  no  great  leader's  name. 

8. 

Such  was  the  general  scope  of  the  Commission's  review 
of  the  great  world-religions,  and  their  interaction  with 
the  Gospel  of  Christ.  No  one  on  completing  it  would 
withhold  his  assent,  one  imagines,  to  what  is  urged  in  the 
Report  as  to  the  necessity  of  continuing  this  co-operative 
study  and  survey.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  present 
Report  was  admittedly  incomplete — for  example  it  only 
treated  Buddhism  incidentally,  the  very  religion  with 
which  the  West,  through  Schopenhauer,  has  of  late  shown 
so  strange  a  sympathy.  But  not  what  it  omitted  but 
what  it  accomplished  is  the  best  argument  for  a  yet 
deeper  study.  Here  is  a  method  of  studying  comparative 
religions — not  purely  philosophical,  still  less  purely 
scientific,  but  Christian  and  theological  through  and 
through,  yet  richly  fruitful  also  in  speculation  and 
scientific  result.  Should  it  not  by  all  means  be  followed 
up,  and  the  science  of  Comparative  Religion,  hitherto 
almost  exclusively  an  instrument  of  religious  scepticism 
or  equally  sterile  religious  universalism,  be  recognised  as 
a  marvellous  instrument  for  the  recovery  of  the  full 
content  of  the  faith  of  Christ  !  Thus  did  the  events  of 
this  fourth  day  of  the  Conference  voice  from  yet  another 
quarter  the  need  of  some  permanent  organisation  which 
should  carry  on  the  work  of  Edinburgh,  1910,  and  through 
this  method  of  co-operative  and  co-ordinated  study  gather 
a  yet  richer  and  fuller  harvest  for  the  Christian  Church. 


150  EDINBURGH  1910 

9- 

Another  deep  impression  made  by  this  Commission 
was  the  need  for  a  completer  and  deeper  training  of 
missionary  candidates.  Not  in  the  least  because  a 
greater  cleverness  is  now  thought  necessary  than  hereto- 
fore, or  because  philosophic  ability  is  now  to  be  considered 
a  sine  qua  non, — for  as  our  modern  Friar,  Brother  F.  J. 
Western,  reminded  the  Conference,  "  the  chief  documents 
are  human,"  and  the  way  to  their  study  is  the  old  way  of 
friendship  unfeigned; — but  just  because  the  most  direct 
way  into  the  human  heart  of  both  Animist  and  Hindu  and 
Moslem  will  be  the  study  of  what  he  holds  most  precious. 
That  study,  the  Report  has  proved,  leads  into  deeper 
recesses  of  the  heart  of  the  perfect  Man,  Christ  Jesus,  and 
so,  in  turn,  the  serious  effort  to  discover  what  is  in  Him, 
will  satisfy  the  needs  discovered  in  them.  Thus  this 
Commission  led  directly  on  to  that  on  the  Preparation 
of  Missionaries  also.  Nay,  it  became  clear  that  not 
missionary  candidates  alone  but  all  candidates  for  any 
Christian  ministry  must  profit,  if  these  premisses  are 
correct,  by  a  study  which  perhaps  has  the  very  deepest 
contributions  to  make  to  the  knowledge  of  Christ  and  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  to  the  Catholicity  of  the  future. 
For  the  question  of  Catholicity  was  a  human  question 
before  it  became  an  ecclesiastical  one,  and  the  full  realisa- 
tion of  the  spiritual  catholicity  of  mankind  may  well  turn 
out  to  lead  to  the  full  realisation  of  a  One  Catholic  Church. 

But  if  these  things  are  true,  it  follows,  as  we  have  seen 
before,  that  neither  candidates  for  service  abroad,  nor 
candidates  for  service  at  home  only,  are  concerned  with 
this  matter,  but  the  whole  Church  itself  ;  and  thus  this 
Commission  led  directly  on  also  to  that  on  the  Home 
Base,  with  which  the  Conference  closed.  It  is  Christen- 
dom, not  the  clergy,  that  is  concerned  with  recovering 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  151 

the  full  content  of  its  idea  of  God.  And  because  the 
length,  breadth,  height  and  depth,  we  are  told,  must 
be  learned  in  company  "  with  all  saints,"  the  way  to  this 
recovery  would  seem  to  be  for  the  whole  Church  to 
manifest  an  intenser  concern  in  the  needs  of  Jew  and 
Greek,  Barbarian  and  Scythian,  Bond  and  Free,  that 
we  without  them  should  not  be  made  perfect. 


10. 

Thus  (the  Report  points  out  in  its  concluding  pages) 
under  the  very  pressure  of  the  enormous  crisis  of  to-day, 
the  Church  may  have  it  in  its  power  to  learn  lessons  of 
literally  indescribable  importance.  The  days  of  the 
crises  of  humanity  are  Days  of  the  Son  of  Man.  And 
clearly  to-day  is  such  a  day.  The  Report  casts  about  to 
find  in  the  annals  of  the  past  the  records  of  another  such 
day,  and  each  of  the  two  parallels  it  discovers  shows  that 
the  courageous  facing  of  the  crisis  brought  with  it  to  the 
Church  a  fresh  realisation  of  God.  .  .  .  First,  when  the 
World  burst  on  the  outlook  of  Israel,  terrible  in  the 
brute  strength  of  those  eastern  Empires  that  made  so  true 
and  just  their  apocalyptic  comparison  with  The  Beast  ; 
smashing  into  Israel's  elementary  theories,  in  which  was 
construed  her  knowledge  of  man,  the  world,  and  God  Him- 
self. And  psalm  and  prophecy  remain  to  show  us  that 
the  issue  was  just  this — Atheism,  or,  Deeper  into  God  ! 
And  the  Books  of  Hosea  and  Isaiah  and  Habakkuk — 
these  and  their  peers — remain  to  show  us  also  how  the 
second  alternative  was  taken.  .  .  .  Again  the  cycle 
comes  full-circuit,  and  again  a  Church,  defenceless  as  a 
new-planted  slip,  is  face  to  face  with  the  World.  Again 
the  issue  is,  Destruction,  or,  Deeper  into  God  !  But 
to  the  Church,  whose  eyes  had  seen  One  come  victorious 
out  of  the  elemental  war,  the  issue  did  not  appear  as 


152  EDINBURGH  1910 

an  alternative  !  Gospel,  Epistle,  Apocalypse  show  that 
no  other  thought  save  the  calm  conviction  of  completest 
victory  ever  crossed  her  mind.1  They  make  it  clear 
that  these  Christians  living  in  time  lived  above  time — 
eternity  literally  lapped  them  round,  shot  them  through 
and  through.  Living  in  nature,  naturally,  they  lived 
also  above  nature,  supernaturally  :  it  was  no  question 
of  an  isolated  miracle  here  or  there, — one  of  the 
great  British  archaeological  scholars  of  to-day  has  de- 
clared that  wherever  the  enquirer  digs  in  any  part  of 
the  records  of  that  first-century  Church  he  strikes  the 
supernatural.  Living  in  the  world  they,  in  fact,  lived 
in  God.   .   .   . 

The  question  then  simply  is — (and  let  it  be  understood 
again  that  this  chapter  from  first  to  last  is  simply  "  an 
account  and  interpretation  "  of  a  Report  and  a  dis- 
cussion)— 7s  the  Church  not  faced  to-day  with  the  same 
crisis  ?  Once  more  has  the  World,  nay,  Nature,  the 
Universe  itself,  smashed  ruthlessly  into  the  conven- 
tionalised theology  of  Christendom :  it  needs  no  seer 
standing  on  the  sand  of  the  shore  of  any  Patmos  to  see 
The  Beast  rising  from  the  world-tide  and  presenting 
once  more  the  immemorial  alternative,  "  Naturism,  or, 
Deeper  into  God  !  "  The  spectacle  of  the  East,  with 
half  a  worldful  of  men,  suddenly  drawn  into  the  full 
current  of  world-thought  is  one  scene  in  the  vision  of 
the  modern  Apocalypse.  The  spectacle  of  the  West 
rapidly  surrendering  to  a  radically  atheist  philosophy 
of  Nature  is  the  other. 

The  path  of  boldness  and  obedience  is  ever  the  path 
of  safety.     May  not  obedience  to  Christ's  command  to 

1  Perhaps  the  solitary  exception  to  this  was  that  timorous  com- 
munity to  whom  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was  written — just  the 
very  community  whose  hold  on  Christ,  and  so  on  the  living  God,  had 
never  been  complete  !     Truly  the  exception  proves  the  rule. 


THE  MISSIONARY  MESSAGE  153 

carry  the  Gospel  to  all  the  world  once  more  spell  safety 
for  the  Church,  and  give  her  victory  over  both  these 
perils  at  once  ?  May  it  not,  in  substituting  for  her  con- 
ventional ideas  a  theology  that  shall  once  more  pervade 
all  life,  bring  in  the  East  and  bring  back  the  West  to  the 
fold  of  the  bosom  of  God  ? 

Thus  these  reflections,  which  have  in  them  so  much  of 
agonising  anxiety,  conclude  with  the  word  of  Hope.  The 
beautiful  close  of  the  Report,  in  which  its  whole  material 
seems  to  have  been  compressed  till  it  glows,  yields  a 
vision  shining  with  the  light  of  a  solemn  hope  :  "  Once 
again  the  Church  is  facing  its  duty,  and  therefore  once  more 
the  ancient  guiding  fires  begin  to  burn  and  shine.11 


CHAPTER  XI 

fl  MISSIONS   AND    GOVERNMENTS  " 

Sunday — "  the  Lord's  Day  "—marked  fittingly  the 
sublimity  of  the  themes  considered  by  the  Conference 
on  the  preceding  day. 

On  this  day  the  ordinary  sessions  of  the  Conference 
were  suspended  ;  and  the  delegates  rested  the  strenuous 
rest  of  an  Edinburgh  Sabbath. 

Only  towards  evening,  the  eve  of  the  day  on  which 
the  Report  on  "  Missions  and  Governments  "  was  to  be 
discussed,  there  was  held  a  meeting  which,  whether  by 
chance  or  design,  formed  a  true  prelude  for  the  Monday. 
What  was  said  at  that  meeting  by  the  Archbishop  of 
York  and  the  Hon.  Seth  Low  may  therefore  be  woven 
into  the  account  of  Monday's  proceedings. 


On  Monday  morning — the  day  on  which  man  returns 
to  work-a-day  subjects — it  was  very  fitting  that  the  one 
Report  which  took  into  its  purview  a  work-a-day  aspect 
of  missions  should  come  up  for  discussion.  In  all  the 
other  Commissions,  as  one  speaker  pointed  out,  the 
Conference  kept,  so  to  speak,  within  the  sphere  of  the 
Christian  Church  ;  but  in  the  Report  now  to  be  con- 
sidered it  was  dealing  with  an  external  power,  the 
power  of  the  State  all  over  the  world.  It  was  one  more 
of  the  novel  features  of  this  Edinburgh  Conference,  that 
this  unusual  subject  had  received  treatment,  and  a 
154 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS       155 

treatment  as  full  and  careful  as  those  reported  on  by 
the  other  Commissions. 

The  same  delegate — a  member  of  the  Commission — 
who  pointed  out  the  novelty  of  the  subject  also 
emphasised  its  peculiar  difficulty.  There  was  first 
the  enormous  variety  and  incommensurateness  of  the 
governments  of  this  world  ;  and  there  was,  secondly, 
the  fact  that  the  relation  of  Church  and  State  is  a  subject 
which  never  has  commanded  a  consensus  of  thinking 
men,  which  does  not  command  it  to-day,  and  which 
perhaps  never  will  fully  command  it,  until  the  two 
become  one  in  the  consummated  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Still,  the  Commission  had  a  clear  and  compassable 
task  in  collecting  and  collating  the  actual  facts  of  the 
case,  and  studying  all  the  widely  different  conditions 
as  they  affect  the  missionary  enterprise.  It  was  thus  able 
to  produce  a  report  that  was  valuable  if  only  because 
it  made  the  facts  and  the  conditions  available.  But 
it  had  gone  further  than  this  :  it  had  seen  its  way 
to  make  some  careful  inductions  from  these  data,  and 
thus  had  taken  the  first  steps  towards  formulating 
principles  which,  if  that  beginning  is  followed  up,  may 
one  day  command  the  assent  of  both  missions  and 
governments,  and  serve  to  guide  their  actions  and 
interactions  in  the  future. 

It  has  already,  surely,  become  clearer  that  the 
Christian  missionary  enterprise  merits,  and  that  it 
receives,  the  consideration  of  the  greatest  of  our  public 
men  as  one  of  the  most  significant  facts  of  the  present 
time.  Yet  how  many  men — in  The  Street  or  out  of 
it — find  it  hard  to  shake  themselves  free  from  the 
nineteenth-century  feeling  about  "  Foreign  Missions  " 
which,  for  example,  Thackeray's  novels  so  faithfully 
reflect.  But  would  not  Thackeray  himself  (or  who- 
ever's  thoughts  he  expressed)   have  felt  compelled  to 


156  EDINBURGH  1910 

reconsider  the  matter  had  he  merely  seen  the  names 
of  the  men  who  formed  this  Commission  on  "  Missions 
and  Governments,"  and  considered  the  sweep  and  scope 
of  the  operations  which  had  justified  the  forming  of  such  a 
Commission.  Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh,  Sir  Robert  Hart, 
Sir  Andrew  Wingate,  the  Hon.  Seth  Low  and  Admiral 
Mahan,  the  Hon.  H.  L.  Borden,  Professor  Carl  Mirbt 
and  Herr  Dr  Berner,  to  mention  only  eight,  were  names 
that  speak  for  themselves.  They  represented  highest 
mental  attainment  and  highest  public  position.  They 
were  the  guarantee  that  the  subject  for  which  they 
consented  to  give  their  labours  was  one  of  the  highest 
dignity  and  the  gravest  importance. 

The  subjects  discussed  in  the  Report  were  indeed 
of  manifest  importance.  Not  only  did  it  take  into 
consideration  the  many  State  questions  which  the 
work  of  missions  brings  up,  but  it  did  not  shrink  from 
touching  boldly  on  the  whole  subject  of  the  relation 
of  ruling  races  to  the  ruled,  and  the  relation  of  the  mis- 
sionary enterprise  to  both. 

Such  were  the  questions  that  came  up  in  the  debate 
also,  and  were  discussed  with  an  ability  and  power 
not  exceeded  on  any  day  of  the  Conference.  The  debate 
in  fact  gave  a  true  idea  and  a  fairly  complete  transcript 
of  the  whole  Report,  and  was  besides  a  vivid  commentary 
upon  it.  And  for  this  reason,  and  because  the  Report 
has  summarised  rather  than  quoted  the  communications 
of  the  correspondents  all  over  the  world,  an  account 
of  the  discussion,  simply,  will  be  the  best  exposition 
of  the  subject  and  the  Report  itself. 


Few  have  not  at  some  time  or  other  heard  some- 
one confessing  the  time-honoured  dogma  that  missions 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS       157 

and  their  agents  are  the  most  troublesome  of  all  the 
things  that  daily  vex  the  statesman.  ...  It  was  well, 
therefore,  to  hear  the  Hon.  Seth  Low  express  at  the 
outset  the  conviction  of  his  Commission  that  "  a  large 
amount  of  mutual  helpfulness  "  existed  between  many 
missions  and  the  governments  within  whose  territories 
they  are,  and  that  "  as  the  unselfish  aims  and  beneficent 
result  of  missions  are  being  more  widely  appreciated, 
the  good  understanding  between  missions  and  govern- 
ments is  increasing."  That,  he  said,  was  "  distinctly 
the  impression  that  the  Commission  had  gained  from 
the  total  correspondence  that  they  had  had."  And 
he  went  on  to  say  that  friends  of  missions  might  con- 
scientiously feel  justified  in  asking  Christian  governments 
to  use  their  good  offices  with  those  of  other  nations 
for  the  free  admission  and  exercise  of  missionary 
endeavour,  and  this  not  on  the  ground  of  religion,  but 
on  account  of  the  now  proved  beneficence  of  this  work, 
and  the  common  right  of  humanity  not  to  be  denied 
its  advantages  ! 

And  this  remarkable  verdict  was  immediately 
endorsed  by  an  ex-Governor  of  Bombay — Lord  Reay — 
who  showed,  out  of  his  own  experience,  that  missions 
were  "  auxiliaries  "  of  government,  and  that  the  services 
thev  rendered  to  it  were  "  invaluable." 


3- 

The  question  of  Governments  and  facilities  for 
Missionary  Work  showed  at  once  the  bewildering  variety 
of  considerations  with  which  the  Commission  had  to 
deal.  For  here  were  Christian  governments  which 
might  be  favourable,  or  not  unfavourable,  or  opposed, 
to  missionary  work  ;  governments  non-Christian  and 
tolerant  of  that  work ;  governments  non-Christian  and 


158  EDINBURGH  1910 

not  tolerant  ; — in  all  the  various  degrees  and  shadings 
of  these  qualifications.  Perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
phenomenon  was  that  presented  by  the  government 
of  Japan,  which  yesterday  was  the  most  intolerant 
Government  of  all,  but  to-day  perhaps  leads  the  way 
in  the  completeness  of  the  religious  toleration  and 
freedom  of  conscience  which  it  has  established. 

One  of  the  very  first  speeches  was  a  moving  one  by 
a  French  delegate,  which  made  the  hearer  wonder 
why  the  French  government  seems  so  incapable  of 
being  convinced  by  such  testimonies  as  that  of  Lord 
Reay's,  or  impressed  by  such  an  attitude  as  that  taken 
by  Japan.  He  showed  clearly  that  the  policy  of  the 
French  government  in  her  colonies,  though  it  works 
out  in  a  pro-Roman  way,  is  not  pro-Roman  as  such. 
It  is  part  of  a  still-lingering  suspicion  that  non-Roman 
missions  will  bring  in  anti-French  influence.  The 
deplorable  policy  that  has  been  introduced  into 
Madagascar,  and  the  cruel  hardships  it  has  inflicted  on 
the  Christian  cause  there,  are  instances  in  point.  But 
the  Report  traced  this  deplorable  attitude  to  a  deeper 
source ;  the  French  government  itself  maintains  that 
that  policy  is  merely  the  legitimate  application  of  its 
secular  policy  at  home.  The  result  is,  as  that  delegate 
showed,  that  French  colonies  are  among  the  least 
evangelised  of  all  the  regions  of  the  earth.  Nevertheless 
he  counselled  the  missions  already  in  occupation  not  to 
be  discouraged,  but  to  stay.  "  Be  kind  and  gentle 
to  the  French  officials ;  adapt  yourselves  to  the 
necessities  and  you  will  outlive  all  the  difficulties." 
And,  in  view  of  the  fewness  of  the  French  non-Roman 
Christians,  he  besought  this  World  Conference  to  take 
the  great  French  colonies  into  its  purview,  not  as 
French  colonies,  but  simply  as  unevangelised  lands. 

How  totally  different  is  the  attitude  of  the  German 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS        159 

Colonial  Office  may  be  judged  from  the  letter  it  sent 
to  the  Conference  x ;  and  reports  from  the  missionaries 
in  German  East  Africa,  South-West  Africa,  Congo, 
Togoland,  etc.,  showed  that  words  are  made  good  by 
real  helpfulness  in  action.  And  the  same  thing  appeared 
in  the  reports  of  the  Dutch  missionaries  who  have  so 
wisely  confined  their  attention  to  the  ample  spheres 
of  their  vast  East  Indian  empire.  Nowhere  did  the 
relation  between  a  Mission  and  a  Government  seem  to 
be  happier  than  in  the  Dutch  East  Indies.  There,  too, 
a  novel  experiment  had  been  tried  with  striking  success — 
the  creation  of  a  Missionary  Consul  with  his  office  at 
Batavia,  an  official  intermediary  (without  any  authority 
save  that  created  by  his  own  usefulness)  between  the 
missions  in  the  field  and  the  government,  in  all  questions 
where  the  two  spheres  overlap.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  this  experiment  will  be  widely  followed. 
The  only  parallel  to  it  was  the  similar  consulship  held 
by  Herr  Dr  Berner  between  German  Mission-boards 
at  home  and  the  government  of  Germany. 

The  complexity  of  the  whole  question  was  well  shown 
by  the  various  attitudes  that  may  be  taken  up  by  the 
same  government  in  different  parts  of  the  world.  In 
British  India  the  British  government  stands  on  the 
same  level  as  the  Japanese  in  point  of  tolerance.  Nay, 
it  has  even  solved,  in  a  manner,  the  problem  how  it 
may  be  a  Christian  government  and  its  acts  be  considered 
as  such,2  and  yet  remain  neutral  religiously  ;  how  it 
may  be  favourable  to  missions  and  yet,  governmentally, 
indifferent.     Yet   the   Native  States,  which  are  within 

1  See  Appendix  to  Chapter  IV. 

2  It  was  Lord  Curzon,  no  great  friend  of  the  enterprise  of  evangelisa- 
tion, who,  as  Viceroy,  said  that  the  government  of  India  is  Christian, 
and  that  he  wished  its  acts  to  be  considered  the  acts  of  a  Christian 
government. 


160  EDINBURGH  1910 

the  British  Empire,  present  an  attitude  towards  missions 
that  is  stiffer  than  that  of  the  Chinese  government 
itself.  Once  more,  in  Mohammedan  countries  the 
British  government  seems  to  take  up  an  attitude 
quite  different ;  and  sometimes  it  even  appears  as  if 
the  difference  was  not  merely  one  of  expediency,  but 
of  principle.  In  Egypt,  it  might  be  argued,  the  British 
government  must  decline,  so  to  speak,  to  recognise 
itself.  It  "  occupies,"  does  not  govern,  the  country. 
(One  delegate  showed,  nevertheless,  that  some  of  the 
ways  in  which  this  position  worked  out  were  open 
to  strong  criticism.) — At  any  rate  the  Sudan  is 
more  than  a  mere  occupation !  But  here,  in  turn, 
expediency  is  strongly  urged.  Yet  what  shall  be  said 
to  the  announcement  of  a  missionary  from  the  Sudan, 
of  the  turning  of  Gordon  College  into  a  Moslem  College 
pure  and  simple,  with  Koran  teaching,  Friday  prayers, 
and  college  mosque  to  match  ?  Or  that  it  should  be 
possible  for  a  high  official  in  the  Sudan,  to  say,  recently, 
according  to  the  same  delegate  (a  missionary  in  whom 
the  Sudan  government  itself  has  perfect  confidence), 
"  You  might  as  well  give  it  up  because  we  ('  we  ! ') 
make  ten  Mohammedans  to  your  one  Christian  !  "  1 
These  announcements  were  greeted  by  the  Conference 
with  loud  shouts  of  "  Shame  !  " — But  the  Sudan  is 
partly  Egyptian,  and  also  in  other  respects  a  difficult 
exception  ?  The  Conference's  attention  was  therefore 
directed,  and  not  for  the  first  time,  to  Northern  Nigeria, 
where  a  good  example  wTas  given  of  how  any  policy 
but  that  which  obtains  in  British  India  is  apt  to  become 
in  practice  flatly  anti-missionary  and  pro-Mohammedan. 

1  His  precise  meaning  was  not  explained  to  Conference.  Presumably 
he  alluded  to  the  de  facto  result  of  general  government  policy  among 
the  pagan  tribes  or  the  influence  of  the  army  upon  the  Sudanese 
recruits  ? 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS       161 

The    testimony    from     Northern     Nigeria    spoke     for 
itself  : 

"  There  is  a  real  open  partisanship  of  Islam.  Practically  no 
attempt  has  been  made  in  educational  work,  and  that  of  missionary 
societies  is  looked  at  coolly  or  even  thwarted.  Bolstering  up  of 
Moslem  duties,  reviving  of  customs  which  have  been  allowed 
to  lapse,  gradual  levelling  up  of  pagan  districts,  so  as  to  accustom 
them  to  Islamic  law,  all  show  the  trend,  and  make  it  obvious  to 
Christian  and  Pagan  that  the  British  Government  has  no  use  for 
either  of  them,  but  only  for  the  Moslem." 

The  Conference  was  further  told  that  it  is  a  recognised 
saying  among  the  Pagans  and  the  Christians  in  that 
part  of  Africa  that  the  government  is  really  favouring 
Mohammedanism,  and  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  become 
Moslems,  otherwise  they  will  get  no  road-making  and 
no  work.  The  officials  openly  went  on  the  assumption 
that  "  Islam  is  the  religion  for  that  part  of  Africa." 
(Yet  on  their  own  confession  they  "  get  no  trouble 
except  from  the  Moslems.")  The  Conference  unmistak- 
ably felt  that  fairplay  and  not  private  opinions  ought 
to  govern  official  attitude  to  Christian  missions.  And 
again  cries  of  "  Shame  !  "  were  heard  when  another 
well-known  delegate,  speaking  with  a  serious  sense 
of  responsibility  as  the  Chairman  of  the  largest 
Missionary  Society  in  the  world,  showed  how  intolerably 
the  policy  works  out  by  which  missionaries  are  debarred 
from  entering  a  province  until  the  Moslem  Emir  had 
given  his  consent  !  ...  It  was  evident  that  here 
was  a  situation  which  revealed  the  need  for  a  strong 
international  board  of  missions  that  should  have  the  task 
of  thoroughly  sifting  every  case,  and  then  of  making 
representations  to  the  government  concerned.  The 
sense  of  this  need  had  been  increasingly  felt  and  ex- 
pressed from  the  very  first  day  of  the  Conference. 


162  EDINBURGH  1910 

The  complexity  of  the  whole  subject  was  further 
illustrated  by  another  curious  comparison  : — the  British 
Government  is  sometimes  seen  applying  to  another 
government  for  facilities  on  behalf  of  missions — as  in 
the  case  of  China  ;  sometimes  being  applied  to  by  its 
own  subjects  (and  not  always  with  satisfactory  results 
as  has  been  seen)  ;  and  sometimes  being  applied  to 
by  other  than  its  own  subjects.  In  this  latter  relation, 
the  Conference  was  amused  by  a  speech,  full  of  sterling 
sense  and  sly  humour,  from  a  Swiss  delegate — the 
subject  of  a  nation  "  fortunate  enough  to  have  no 
colonies."  He  showed  how  the  Swiss  missions  in  South 
Africa  get  their  way  with  British  and  Portuguese  govern- 
ments by  the  simple  device  of  conforming  to  British 
and  Portuguese  regulations  on  every  possible  occasion, 
and  addressing  officials  in  the  British  and  Portuguese 
languages  respectively, — which  they  take  the  trouble 
to  learn,  and  to  teach  to  their  African  schoolmasters  ! 
And  he  charmed  the  Conference  with  a  word  of  warning 
to  his  Anglo-Saxon  friends  .  .  .  nobody  else  (he  said) 
would  give  it,  "so  the  little  Swiss  man  must  say  it. 
Do  not  expect  everybody  to  speak  your  language  ! 
Do  not  expect  every  colonial  governor  to  be  friendly  to 
you  when  you  address  him  in  English.  With  us  Swiss 
people  you  may  do  it  and  we  shall  try  to  answer  in 
English  if  we  can.  But  with  other  nations,  especially 
in  the  colonies,  it  will  not  do  !  " 

It  was  very  pretty  banter:  —  the  "dear  and  power- 
ful Anglo-Saxon  friends  "  felt  the  tingle  of  its  mild 
yet  just  perceptible  sting,  and  enjoyed  the  delicate 
sensation. 

4- 

There  were  many  valuable  things  said  in  regard  to 
missions    and    non-Christian    governments.     There    are 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS        163 

still  a  few  countries  where  facilities  for  missionary 
work  are  utterly  denied,  and  where  it  is  inadvisable 
to  demand  them,  such  as  Nepal,  Bhutan,  Afghanistan. 
In  China  the  problem  has  been  practically  solved. 
And  there  was  the  protest  of  one  delegate  against  the 
assertion  of  the  Report  that  the  attitude  of  the  Chinese 
Government  was  one  of  "  hostility  to  Christianity." 
He  said  that  he  had  personal  knowledge  that  the 
Chinese  government  is  far  from  hostile  to  Chris- 
tianity, and  that  any  instance  of  opposition  should 
be  rather  described  as  "  apparent  hostility."  The 
situation  in  Turkey  revealed  more  serious  features. 
Here  there  is  nominal  religious  freedom.  But  practically 
the  individual  is  totally  and  absolutely  deprived  of 
freedom  in  one  cardinal  matter,  the  freedom  to  change 
his  religion.  And  the  missionaries  in  Arabic-speaking 
Turkey  had  sent  an  important  appeal  to  the  Conference, 
in  which  they  declared  that  since  educational  missions 
had  confessedly  conferred  upon  the  Ottoman  Empire 
very  great  benefits,  and  had  helped  to  make  possible 
the  era  of  freedom,  the  time  had  come  to  urge  on  the 
Ottoman  government  the  duty  of  bringing  Turkey 
into  line  with  the  free  nations  in  respect  of  liberty  of 
conscience  ;  that,  further,  a  necessary  element  in  such 
liberty  is  freedom  to  every  man  to  profess  the  religion 
his  conscience  approves  ;  and  that  it  is  indispensable, 
in  order  that  this  principle  may  be  actual  and  effectual, 
that  it  be  proclaimed  throughout  the  empire.  As  it 
had  been  decided  by  the  Business  Committee  that  no 
special  motions  should  be  submitted  to  the  Conference, 
there  was  no  opportunity  to  put  the  one  submitted 
by  the  Ottoman  missions.  .  .  .  The  need  of  a  permanent 
Board  for  considering  and  taking  action  in  such  matters 
became  more  manifest  than  ever. 

The  difficulty,  nay,  the  impossibility,  of  laying  down 


164  EDINBURGH  1910 

principles  that  would  apply  universally  was  well  shown 
by  a  question  that  is  sometimes  one  of  burning  interest 
in  mission  lands  :  the  claiming  or  accepting  of  indemnities 
for  violence  and  injury.  In  China,  for  example,  ex- 
perience has  conclusively  shown  that  this  compensation 
for  loss  of  life  should  be  absolutely  tabooed.  The 
Secretary  of  the  China  Inland  Mission,  that  mission 
glorious  with  the  crown  of  many  a  red  martyrdom, 
impressively  stated,  amid  the  murmured  assent  of  the 
Conference,  the  unalterable  principle,  No  Compensation 
for  Martyrs.  In  most  cases,  it  seemed,  compensation 
for  even  loss  of  property  should  be  refused.  In  India, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  only 
way  of  supporting  loyally  the  responsible  government 
would  be  by  the  acceptance  of  such  indemnities.  The 
Vice-Chairman  of  the  Commission  quoted  with  approval 
from  the  wisdom  of  Captain  Bunsby ;  the  bearing 
of  every  general  observation  emphatically  lay,  he  said, 
in  its  application.  Similarly,  in  the  matter  of  appeals  to 
Consuls  in  countries  where  extra-territorial  rights  are 
recognised :  in  China,  he  observed,  it  is  nearly  always 
advisable  absolutely  to  forego  that  right  ;  in  Turkey  it 
seems  to  be  considered  by  the  authorities  themselves 
as  due  to  their  dignity  that  such  appeals  should  come 
through  the  Consul  ! 

And  here  the  Conference  listened  to  a  wonderfully 
illuminating  address  from  the  Chinese  delegate,  Dr 
C.  T.  Wang.  Into  the  seven  minutes  of  his  admirably 
phrased  speech  he  packed  a  whole  vade-mecum  for  the 
foreigner  in  China.  It  was  a  revelation  of  the  Chinese 
point  of  view.  As  one  who  was  both  a  Chinaman  and 
a  Christian  he  made,  with  striking  effect,  a  sturdy 
declaration  like  this  : — 

"  Let  it  be  understood  from  the  very  first  .  .  .  that  China  has  her 
religions,  and  a  Government  to  which  loyalty,  respect,  and  justice 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS        165 

should  be  given  by  all  Chinese,  Christians  or  non-Christians,  as  well 
as  by  the  European,  American  and  Japanese  powers." 

(it  was  the  first  time  one  had  ever  heard  this  trio  of 
names  bracketed  together.  Significant  !).  Speaking 
as  a  Chinaman,  he  was  impressive  in  his  demonstration 
of  the  lamentable  blunders  which  foreign  intervention 
is  apt  to  create — the  confusion  worse  confounded,  the 
hopeless  defeat  of  the  very  aim  itself.  He,  moreover, 
corrected  in  the  most  business-like  style  four  statements 
of  the  Report,  relating  to  alleged  discrimination  on  the 
part  of  the  Chinese  Government  against  the  Christians. 
In  one  case  he  maintained  the  perfect  right  of  his  Govern- 
ment to  do  as  it  had  done.  But  it  was  most  of  all 
impressive  to  hear  him,  speaking  as  a  Christian,  warn 
missionaries  never,  "  even  in  the  most  extreme  cases," 
to  "  extend  their  protection  to  the  Chinese  Christians," 
and  to  make  this  principle  clearly  known  "  to  the  would- 
be  converts  from  the  very  beginning  before  they  are 
received  into  the  Church."  A  loyal  subject,  he 
considered,  is  one  who,  "  independent  of  the  help  of 
a  particular  religion,  abides  within  the  laws  of  his  or  her 
country."  There  spoke  the  first-century  Christian  ! 
In  this  sturdy  nationalist  and  good  Christian,  with  the 
crisp,  terse  speech  and  quite  frank  non-respect  of  persons, 
one  saw  the  Church  which  is  to  be  a  Chinese  Church, 
and  which  in  being  so  is  to  win  its  country  for  Christ. 

5- 

If  a  Chinaman  gave  the  Conference  a  vade-mecum 
on  the  general  question  of  etiquette  for  foreigners  in 
China,  a  Dane  succeeded  in  packing  a  whole  philosophy, 
without  apparent  effort,  into  his  seven-minutes  speech 
on  the  art  of  making  representations  to  officials.  When 
the  "  viking-like  "   Norwegian,   Lars    Dahle,  sat    down 


166  EDINBURGH  1910 

it  was  amid  an  unusual  burst  of  applause  ;  and  in  the 
afternoon  Lord  Balfour,  in  summing  up  the  discussion, 
paid  him  the  exceptional  compliment  of  singling  out  his 
address ;  and  this  in  a  Conference  where  time  was  hardly 
ever  spared  for  praising  any  speaker  or  any  speech. 
Probably  every  delegate  had  in  his  mind  already  used 
almost  the  same  expression  with  which  Lord  Balfour 
characterised  this  address  :  "It  seems  to  me,  in  summing 
up  the  lessons  of  this  Report,  the  words  of  my  Norwegian 
friend  stand  out  as  the  quintessence  of  good  sense  and 
guidance."  The  reader  of  this  account  has  perhaps 
more  than  once  felt  curious  as  to  what  these  seven- 
minute  orations  were  really  like — especially  when  they 
were  good  of  their  kind.  It  would  perhaps  be  well 
to  gratify  his  curiosity  just  once,  and  how  better 
than  by  means  of  an  address  that  really  exhausted 
the  subject  of  which  it  treated — in  seven  minutes  ! 
Indeed  the  writer  is  under  the  impression  that  the  full 
allowance  was  in  this  case  not  taken.  Here  is  this 
address,  then,  in  full :  —  "I  shall  just  try,"  he 
said, 

"  to  make  a  few  remarks  on  the  question  how  to  create  and  how 
to  conserve  good  relations  between  Missions  and  Governments, 
and  in  order  to  be  short  I  shall  try  to  put  what  I  have  to  say  in 
the  form  of  definite  rules.  My  first  rule  would  be,  my  first  advice 
to  missionaries  would  be,  do  not  occupy  yourselves  too  much 
with  trifles.  It  occurs  very  often  in  the  course  of  missionary  life 
out  in  the  mission  field  that  Government  officials  may  do  some- 
thing you  have  good  reason  to  complain  of,  but  if  it  is  only  small 
things  do  not  trouble  about  it,  because  if  you  complain  every 
time  you  have  reason  for  complaining  they  would  think  you  were 
bothering  them  too  much,  and  you  would  lose  the  goodwill  of 
the  Government,  and  you  want  that  for  the  big  questions.  My 
next  rule  is,  do  not  be  too  hasty  in  your  actions.  You  should 
bide  your  time  :  you  and  the  time  together,  you  know,  would  be 
a  match  for  anything,  and  would  work  against  and  prove  too 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS       167 

much  for  your  adversaries.  There  may,  of  course,  be  instances 
where  prompt  action  is  quite  necessary,  but  in  many  cases  I  have 
found  as  a  missionary  out  in  Madagascar,  that  if  you  can  let  the 
Governor  find  out  by  himself  that  he  has  done  wrong,  he  will  be 
very  thankful  to  you  for  giving  him  the  opportunity  of  correcting 
it  himself.  Then  if  it  comes  to  action,  do  try  by  all  means  to 
settle  all  difficulties  with  the  subordinate  Government  repre- 
sentative in  the  district  where  you  are,  without  bringing  it  up 
to  higher  authorities.  The  further  you  bring  it,  the  more  difficult 
and  complicated  it  will  be  and  the  more  ill-will  you  create  in  the 
mind  of  the  Governor  in  the  district  where  you  are.  It  will  be 
considered  as  a  personal  accusation  against  the  official  and  he 
will  find  means  to  repay  it  to  you  if  you  carry  your  point  in  the 
first  question.  Then  I  would  say,  if  you  are  to  bring  a  matter  to 
the  higher  officials,  that  should  not  be  done  by  a  single  missionary 
but  by  a  leader  of  the  Mission.  I  have  seen  difficulties  arising 
from  that.  The  single  missionary  comes  up  to  the  Central  Govern- 
ment and  brings  his  complaint  before  them,  and  the  Government 
after  hearing  the  different  complaints,  says,  "  There  is  no  unity 
in  that  mission."  You  should  always  leave  this  matter  to  the 
mission  leader,  or  you  will  probably  make  a  mess  of  it.  I  would 
say  next  if  the  leader  of  a  Mission  has  to  bring  the  matter  before 
the  central  Government  he  should  look  carefully  for  the  right  season 
to  do  it.  In  Madagascar  at  least  it  is  the  case  that  the  Govern- 
ment could  not  do  two  things  at  a  time.  If  they  are  occupied 
in  some  other  work  you  should  never  bring  your  matter  before 
them.  Again,  if  you  bring  it  before  them,  you  should  always  be 
careful  to  act  on  the  supposition  of  goodwill  on  their  part,  that 
you  have  only  to  explain  what  you  think  ought  to  be  done  to  have 
it  done.  Maybe  you  have  some  misgivings  about  its  being  done, 
but  do  not  let  them  appear.  It  is  a  very  polite  way  of  telling  a 
man  what  he  ought  to  do  when  you  really  act  on  the  supposition 
that  he  is  the  very  man  who  would  do  it.  By  all  means  do  not  be 
too  ready  to  go  to  the  Consul  in  affairs  concerning  the  Govern- 
ment. That  should  be  a  last  resort.  It  may  be  necessary  some- 
times, but  very  seldom  if  you  act  wisely  :  and  if  a  missionary  has 
come  to  this,  that  it  can  only  be  done  by  the  influence  of  the 
Consul,  he  is  done  for.  He  had  better  pack  up  his  luggage  and  go 
home.  I  would  mention  what  the  Prime  Minister  of  Madagascar 
once  said  to  me.     He  said,  '  You  Norwegians  have  got  no  Consul 


168  EDINBURGH  1910 

here,  but  if  you  act  up  to  the  principles  of  the  Bible  we  shall  have 
no  trouble  with  you.'  We  wish  to  act  up  to  the  principles  of  the 
Bible  ;  then  let  the  Bible  be  our  Consul." 


6. 

But  graver  was  the  tone  and  deeper  the  passion  with 
which  a  greater  question  still  was  discussed  : — the  whole 
question  of  the  relation  of  ruling  nations  to  subject 
races.  Three  great  national  wrongs  were  the  storm- 
centres  of  almost  the  only  real  anger  manifested  at 
this  World  Missionary  Conference.  The  Hon.  Seth 
Low  had  already  mentioned  the  three  together,  on  the 
Sunday  evening.  Public  opinion,  he  said,  had  agreed 
to  condemn  the  first,  the  opium-traffic.  With  regard  to 
the  second  and  third — the  liquor-traffic  and  enforced 
labour — "  public  opinion  has  not  moved  so  far  yet." 
The  Conference  next  day  was  to  contemplate  the  marvel 
of  a  public  opinion  that  could  condemn  the  one  and 
yet  suspend  its  judgment  or  its  action  in  regard  to  the 
others  ! 

Precisely  the  same  three  wrongs  were  touched  on  by 
the  Archbishop  of  York  on  that  same  Sunday  afternoon 
in  his  noble  and  masterly  exposition  of  the  place  and 
duty  of  missions  towards  governments,  in  regard  to 
the  treatment  of  non-Christian  races.  He  showed 
how  national  policy  is  often  the  only  expression  of 
the  public  opinion  of  the  nation,  and  depends  directly 
on  the  ideals  and  activities  of  the  citizens.  The 
instinct,  he  said,  which  brings  nations  into  contact 
with  these  Asian  and  African  peoples  is  the  trading 
impulse,  which  is  necessarily  based  on  the  motive  of 
self-interest.  Further,  since  that  motive,  when  left 
to  itself,  must  almost  inevitably  make  the  all  too  easy 
transition  to  selfishness,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS       169 

a  Government,  at  one  of  whose  ears  trade-interest 
has  a  perpetual  place,  should  always  have  at  its  other 
ear  a  counteracting  influence  that  acknowledges  a 
higher  law,  and  insists  on  moral  ideals  as  well  as  on 
material  advantages.  Only  so  has  the  fundamental 
principle,  to  "  rule  for  the  benefit  of  the  ruled,"  a  fair 
chance  of  being  kept  alive.  Memorably,  too,  did  Dr 
Seth  Low  demonstrate  the  terribly  urgent  necessity 
for  supplementing  Man's  instinct  of  gain  by  Superman's  x 
principle  of  Benevolence.  Speaking  of  the  grave 
economic  dislocations  which  China's  legitimate  develop- 
ment of  her  vast  resources  may  bring  about  all  over 
the  world,  he  said  : 

"  If  those  questions  are  going  to  be  met  in  the  light  of  natural 
law,  so  that  it  is  to  be  a  question  of  the  Struggle  for  Existence  and 
the  Survival  of  the  Fittest,  I  don't  wonder  that  men  speak  of  the 
Yellow  Peril ;  but  if  we  can  place  side  by  side  with  that  Struggle 
for  Existence,  in  an  effective  and  working  force,  what  Henry 
Drummond  called  the  Struggle  for  the  Existence  of  the  Other 
Man  2  .  .  .  then  we  may  escape  what  otherwise  would  be  assuredly 
a  Battle  of  Armageddon,  and  see  a  future  ushered  in  wherein  the 
Yellow  Peril  shall  be  converted  into  a  Golden  Opportunity  for  the 
cause  of  the  truth,  and  the  everlasting  brotherhood  of  man." 

So  once  again  in  that  hall  did  Alberich's  Gold  gleam 
out  :  symbol  of  the  great  human  drama  of  the  love  of 
Gain  and  the  gain  of  Love. 


The  Opium  Wrong.  —  It  is  unnecessary  to  repeat 
or   even   summarise   the   Archbishop's   account   of   the 

1  Christ's — not  a  certain  German  philosopher's. 

2  The  omitted  sentences  indicated  that,  as  by  the  Archbishop  of 
York,  so  by  this  speaker  also,  Christian  Missions  were  considered  to 
be  the  way,  perhaps  the  only  way,  by  which  this  demonstration  can 
be  made. 


170  EDINBURGH  1910 

"  sinister  and  sordid  story  of  the  opium  trade  in  China. " 
It  is  well  known,  and  the  Conference  was  given  reason 
to  hope  that  the  stain  is  soon  to  be  removed.  Bishop 
Brent  of  the  Philippines,  who  had  some  share  in  draw- 
ing international  attention  to  the  subject,  strongly 
maintained  the  absolute  sincerity  of  all  the  governments 
— Chinese,  British,  and  Dutch — who  had  manifested 
a  desire  to  see  the  traffic  checked  and  stopped,  at  loss, 
in  every  case,  to  themselves.  He  further  attributed 
the  origin  of  what  has  become  a  world-wide  movement 
to  the  Presbyterian  and  Methodist  Missions  in  the 
Philippines — he  could  say  this,  therefore,  as  an  Anglican 
Bishop,  without  conceit — "  I  only  wish  I  were  Bishop 
of  both,"  he  added  amid  sympathetic  laughter.  This 
Bishop  was  actually  on  his  way  to  preside  at  a  Hague 
International  Conference  for  considering  the  means 
towards  an  end  about  which,  he  said,  "  there  is  no 
difference  of  opinion  —  the  final  relegation  of  opium 
to  solely  medical  use."  Surely  that  end  was  now  in 
sight. 

The  Liquor  Wrong. — "  The  time  has  come,"  said  the 
Hon.  William  Jennings  Bryan  on  this  same  day,  "  when 
the  Christian  people  in  the  Christian  nations  should 
ask  their  governments  to  throw  their  influence  upon 
the  side  of  temperance."  He  was  speaking  of  the 
liquor  trade  at  home  ;  but  "  temperance "  in  regard 
to  the  African  liquor  trade  can  only  mean  one  thing — 
strict  prevention.  The  story  which  Dr  Charles  F. 
Harford  had  to  tell  about  the  liquor  question  in  Southern 
Nigeria,  a  British  colony,  drew  forth  a  burst  of  wrathful 
amazement.  Chosen  by  three  National  Committees  as 
intermediary  between  Missions  and  governments  in 
regard  to  the  liquor  trade  among  African  races,  he  spoke 
with  full  knowledge,  with  the  knowledge  too  that  the 
law  of  libel    (which  is  not  sparingly  used  in  these  cases) 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS        171 

would  be  always  ready  to  avenge  inaccuracies  of  state- 
ment. He  told  of  a  Report  of  a  Government  Committee 
of  Inquiry,  which  reported  an  import  of  4,000,000  gallons 
of  spirit  into  one  colony  without  finding  any  accompani- 
ment of  race-deterioration  ;  of  the  methods  by  which 
this  strange  finding  was  reached, — the  onus  probandi 
cast  on  the  missions,  the  Government  of  Southern 
Nigeria  setting  itself  to  defend  the  trade  ;  of  the 
prejudicing  of  the  case  before  ever  the  Committee 
started  its  inquiry, — a  Chief's  subsidy  suspended  by 
an  Acting-President  because  he  had  advised  his  people 
not  to  buy  gin,  and  restored  when  that  Chief  had  sent 
a  bellman  round  the  town  to  advise  his  people  to  buy 
that  gin  again  ;  a  Bishop  of  the  Diocese  officially  given 
the  lie  in  Parliament  and  flouted  publicly  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  Southern  Nigeria  because  he  had  stated  that 
fines  imposed  by  government  were  paid  in  gin  and 
received  by  that  government  in  gin  in  certain  Southern 
Nigerian  Courts  ;  and  then  after  that  Bishop  had 
borne  the  disgraceful  stigma  of  disseminating  false 
statements  for  a  whole  year,  the  admission  by  an  official 
of  the  Colonial  Office  that  "  there  is  no  doubt  that  gin  has 
been  accepted,  as  I  say,  in  payment  of  fines  and  fees 
in  the  native  courts  of  Brass" — six  in  number;  further, 
the  discovery  that  a  government  clerk  was  actually 
undergoing  a  sentence  of  five  years'  imprisonment 
in  Old  Calabar  prison  for  embezzling  court  fines  paid 
in  gin ; — not  one  word  of  apology  being  given,  then  or 
since  then,  to  the  despised  "missionary":  and  finally, 
the  evidence  given,  nevertheless,  before  this  same  Com- 
mittee of  Inquiry,  proving  that  there  is  degrading 
drunkenness  in  British  South  Nigeria ;  that  young  men, 
young  women,  and  even  little  children  are  given  spirits  ; 
that  thousands  of  children  are  pawned  to  pay  the  debts 
incurred  by  the  gin-drinking   of  their  parents,   which 


172  EDINBURGH  1910 

spells  slavery  for  those  children,  and  this  in  a  British 
colony  under  the  British  flag.    .    .    . 

Damning  statement  of  a  damnable  business.  The 
calmer  and  more  judicial  tone  of  the  Archbishop  of  York 
was  only  a  grave  endorsement  of  the  graveness  of  the 
charge. 

"  [In  that  Report  of  the  Commission]  you  can  see  (I  make 
no  comments  on  a  difficult  matter)  the  bias  of  governments  to 
protect  the  interests  of  trade,  and  the  bias  of  the  missionary  to 
protect  the  independent  rights  of  self-development  on  the  part  of 
the  natives.  We  can  only  too  easily  trust  the  bias  of  the  govern- 
ment to  prevail.  It  is  for  Christian  citizenship  to  see  that  the  bias 
of  the  missionary  obtains  at  least  fair  play." 

8. 

The  Enforced  Labour  Wrong. — But  with  even  more 
blistering  force  came  the  inevitable  reminder  of  the 
Congo  horror — that  supreme  example,  as  the  Arch- 
bishop justly  said,  of  the  tragedy  of  selfish  interest 
and  money  advantage, — the  nibelungish  Yellow  Peril, — 
minus  the  restraint  and  the  activity  of  Christian  citizen- 
ship. The  Conference  was  reminded  of  the  conditions 
under  which  that  Congo  continent — for  so  it  is — was 
handed  over  to  a  European  nation  ;  of  the  solemn 
responsibility  thus  incurred  by  the  signatories  of  the 
Berlin  Treaty  to  see  those  conditions  kept  ;  and  of  the 
sickening  issue  of  red  shame.  It  must  go  down  here, 
at  least  in  brief — the  book  is  unfortunately  incomplete 
without  it  : — 

"  A  stroke  of  the  pen  swept  away  all  communal  or  tribal  rights, 
which  from  time  immemorial  had  been  enjoyed  by  the  people 
in  forests  and  uncultivated  land.  Then  came  the  demand  for 
offensive  taxes  to  be  paid  in  rubber,  etc.,  brought  in  from  the 
forests  which  were  once  their  own ;  forced  labour  ;  compulsory 
purchases  at   Government  stores  to  be  paid  for  in  rubber,  the 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS        173 

amount  being  arbitrarily  fixed  by  the  agent  of  the  Government, 
whose  emoluments  depended  mainly  on  the  amount  of  rubber 
he  could  get  collected.  The  burden  became  intolerable,  and 
then  came  the  worst.  For  failure  to  bring  in  the  required 
amount,  punishment  was  inflicted  by  letting  loose  on  the  offend- 
ing villages  bands  of  savages,  sometimes  cannibals,  armed  with 
rifles.  Mutilation,  murder,  rape,  and  unutterable  outrages  were 
inflicted  on  the  people,  often  within  the  knowledge  of  European 
officials."    (Quoted  by  the  Archbishop  of  York.) 

And  again — from  another  delegate  : 

"  No  public  assembly  could  listen  without  shuddering,  sickening 
horror,  to  a  page  from  this  record  [the  diary  of  a  Congo  missionary] ; 
but  its  most  terrible  revelations  are  paralleled  by  the  implications 
of  the  Reports  of  the  King's  Commission." 

"  Arise,  0  Lord,  0  God,  lift  tip  thy  hand; 
That  man  which  is   of   the   earth  may  be  terrible  no 
no  more!  " 


But  what  was  the  practical  issue  before  the  Conference, 
as  a  deliberative  assembly  with  moral  influence,  capable 
(if  it  left  behind  it  any  permanently  representative 
body)  of  bringing  weighty  pressure  to  bear  ?  .  .  .  For 
neither  could  that  Conference — any  more  than  all  the 
new  King  of  the  Belgian's  horses  and  all  his  men — 
"  make  reparation  to  the  natives  whose  lives  have  been 
either  lost  or  darkened." 

The  Churches  and  the  Missionary  Societies  could  at 
least  be  alert  so  that  there  might  be  no  future  parallel 
to  this  example  of  the  ineffable  Superman's  work, 
which 

"  with  the  brightest  of  hell's  aureoles 
Doth  shine  supreme,  incomparably  crowned." 

As  the  Archbishop  pointed  out,  the  rubber  boom  and 
other  like  phenomena  should  serve  to  keep  Christian 


174  EDINBURGH  1910 

citizenship  wide  awake.  Those  struggling  for  the 
Existence  of  the  Other  Man  must  be  on  the  look-out, 
for  the  Congo  is  only  a  type,  though  a  supreme  one. 
That  place  at  the  Other  Ear  of  governments  must  be  kept. 

But,  in  particular,  the  Conference  was  entitled  to  ask 
if  the  situation  in  the  Congo  had  yet  been  relieved  ? 
The  transfer  to  the  Belgian  Government,  of  course,  must 
be  judged  on  its  merits,  the  responsibility  of  the  signa- 
tories remaining  wholly  unaffected  by  that  or  any 
other  internal  re-arrangement  effected  by  the  trustee. 

There  were  four  speeches  given  on  this  point,  and 
they  were  the  closing  speeches  in  the  whole  discussion. 
The  first  was  by  an  American  delegate,  Dr  Thomas  S. 
Barbour,  a  member  of  the  Commission  ;  the  second, 
by  a  Dutch  delegate,  Professor  H.  Van  Nes  ;  the  third, 
by  a  British  delegate,  Rev.  C.  E.  Wilson  of  the  Baptist 
Missionary  Society  ;  the  last,  by  a  Belgian,  M.  le  Pasteur 
R.  Mayhoffer  of  the  Eglise  Chretienne  Missionnaire. 

The  first-named  advanced  considerations,  calculated 
to  arouse  gravest  doubts  as  to  whether  any  radical 
improvement  had  taken  place  (the  new  King's  personal 
desire  for  reform  being  cordially  allowed)  :  doubts  con- 
nected with  the  intrinsic  nature  of  the  reforms  them- 
selves— reforms  which  the  Primate  of  all  England  had 
ventured  to  characterise  as  "  manifestly  inadequate  .  .  . 
and  even  at  the  best  .  .  .  tardy  in  their  operation  "  ; 
doubts  connected  with  the  "  almost  unaltered  personnel  " 
of  the  new  administration  ;  doubts  connected,  finally, 
with  the  unaltered  system  of  land-tenure,  which  Sir 
Edward  Grey  said  years  ago  was  the  mischief  at  the 
bottom  of  everything,  and  which  an  American  Secretary 
of  State,  in  a  letter  to  the  Belgian  Minister,  called  "  the 
deprivation  of  the  natives  of  their  rights  to  the  soil/' 
adding  that  the  U.S.  Government  confidently  expected 
to  see  it  changed  without  delay. 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS        175 

Thus  the  speaker  concluded  that  the  changes  that 
had  been  made  were  a  "  meagre  product "  of  the  ex- 
posure effected  by  the  King's  Commission  ;  and  that 
they  "  played  about  the  edges  of  a  true  reform." 

The  second  speaker,  who  claimed  to  represent  all 
the  Dutch  delegates,  "  in  striking  a  somewhat  discordant 
note,"  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  matter  was  entirely 
one  of  international  politics,  and  that  the  Commission, 
and  the  Conference,  in  meddling  with  it  were  violating 
their  own  principle  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  political 
questions.  He  pointed  out  that  the  Report  was  drafted 
before  the  death  of  King  Leopold;  without,  however, 
saying  anything  in  reply  to  what  the  last  speaker  said 
about  the  actual  situation  at  the  present  moment. 

The  third  speaker,  representing  missions  actually 
at  work  in  the  Congo,  defended  the  action  of  the  British 
mission  societies.  He  endorsed  the  contention  of  the 
first  speaker  that  the  reforms  so  far  are  chiefly  "  good 
words."  "  We  are  still  waiting  for  real  and  genuine 
reform  :  but  we  are  not  going  to  give  up  our  divinely- 
appointed  task  to  work  for  the  emancipation  and  up- 
lifting of  the  down-trodden  and  oppressed  people  of 
the  Congo." 

Very  loud  applause  burst  in  on  the  speaker  at  this 
point. 

The  fourth  speaker  thought  it  would  be  "  unjust  to 
deny  that  great  changes  have  already  taken  place  "  : 
that  the  change  of  monarch  ;  the  translation  of  the 
responsibility  and  the  authority  from  the  Crown  to 
Parliament ;  the  new  enactments ;  and  the  presence  of 
reformers  in  the  Parliament- House  itself,  justified  the  de- 
claration that  things  are  going  on,  if  slowly, — "  too  slowly 
especially  in  what  concerns  forced  labour,"  he  added. 

Thus  inconclusively  ended  the  debate  of  the  World 
Missionary  Conference  on  the  red  horror  of  the  Congo. 


176  EDINBURGH  1910 


9- 


Neither  on  this  nor  on  any  other  particular  question 
was  it  possible  for  the  Conference  to  give  a  formal  vote 
or  pass  a  resolution.  And  this  inability,  or  disability, 
so  keenly  felt  at  that  moment,  was  what  gave  the  most 
pungent  point  to  some  of  the  sentences  with  which 
Lord  Balfour,  the  Chairman  of  the  Commission,  now  closed 
the  debate.  Speaking  amid  the  growing  excitement  of  a 
Conference  every  delegate  of  which  saw  that  the  speaker 
was  coming  to  what  he  of  all  things  desired  to  hear, — 
a  Conference  which  was  already  highly  strung  when 
the  speech  began, — he  pointed  out  that  it  would  not 
have  been  of  much  use  even  if  they  had  thrashed  out 
the  serious  allegations  made  during  the  day,  and  then, 
after  the  debate,  had  passed  this  or  that  resolution. 
"  These  Conferences  come  "  he  continued,  "  and  Con- 
ferences go,  but  the  Governments  remain.  And  if  you 
are  going  to  get  the  best  out  of  the  energy  and  the  time 
that  has  been  spent  in  organising  this  Conference,  you  will, 
I  hope,  leave  behind  you,  as  is  suggested  in  the  Report, 
some  permanent  body  which  will  speak  for  you,  which 
will  hear  what  you  have  to  say  to  it,  will  sift  it  in  a 
sympathetic  and  straightforward  manner,  and  having 
itself  attained  to  the  truth,  if  the  truth  is  against  the 
action  of  the  Government,  will,  with  one  voice,  leave  the 
Government  which  is  concerned  no  peace  till  it  gets 
reform." 

It  came  then — the  rain  of  the  clapping  of  hands,  the 
storm  of  "  Hears  "  prolonged  into  cheering  !  There  was 
no  mistaking  the  meaning  character  of  the  sound.  Every 
day  since  the  beginning  of  the  Conference — certainly 
every  day  except  one — some  such  allusion  or  suggestion 
had  at  once  been  caught  up  by  the  same  significant 
applause,  but  on  this  day  the  sound  of  it  had  a  new, 


MISSIONS  AND  GOVERNMENTS        177 

a  fiercer  note.  It  was  as  though  a  whole  society  of 
world-servants  were  realising  its  collective  dumbness, 
its  corporate  impotence  ;  were  rebelling  against  such 
stockishness,  and  with  urgent  gesticulations  and  strepi- 
tous  clamour  were  demanding  to  be  given  an  articulate 
voice  :  a  voice  with  which  to  make  known  its  just 
desires  and  its  just  complaints,  and  with  which,  if  it 
please  God,  to  perform  more  faithfully  and  more  effectu- 
ally its  office  of  tribune  to  a  world  of  men. 

Was  there  not  something  else  there  too  ?  Was  it 
not  as  if  the  unborn  babe  of  Unity  Regained  had  strongly 
stirred  in  the  womb  ?  Here  was  a  thrill  of  common 
purpose,  of  common  will  to  live,  of  common  will  to  do. 
Such  stirrings  surely,  and  only  such,  are  worthy  to  be 
taken  as  premonitions  of  the  corporate  unity  of  the  days 
to  come,  the  only  corporate  unity  that  would  be  worth 
having, — the  unity  that  is  the  expression  of  the  desire 
of  co-operation,  the  unity  that  is  the  Will  to  Live, 
and  the  Will  to  Act,  Together. 


CHAPTER  XII 

"  CO-OPERATION   AND   THE   PROMOTION   OF   UNITY  " 

And  now  came  the  day  on  which  all  these  desires  and 
demands  for  some  definite  method  and  permanent 
organ  of  co-operation  must  be  consummated.  For 
this  was  the  day  on  which  the  Report  of  the  Commission 
on  Co-operation  and  the  Promotion  of  Unity  was  to 
be  discussed,  and  on  this  most  fitting  day  was  to  be  pro- 
posed to  the  whole  Conference  a  resolution  which  should 
give  effect  to  those  desires  and  demands.  It  was  the 
21st  June,  Midsummer 's-day,  the  longest  day  in  the  year. 
The  auspices  were  favourable !  The  sun  in  its  course 
fought  for  Israel,  uttering  without  speech  or  language 
a  tale  of  achievement  and  fulfilment,  telling  of  summer's 
genial  maximum  of  warmth  and  light,  the  atmosphere 
in  which  everything  must  needs  expand,  and  in  which 
nothing  looks  forbidding  or  impossible. 

I. 

The  resolution  which  that  day  saw  moved,  seconded, 
spoken  to,  and  carried  without  a  dissentient,  was,  on 
the  face  of  it,  merely  a  practical,  business-like  measure 
for  promoting  certain  forms  of  co-operation  between 
Boards  and  Societies  working  in  the  mission-fields 
of  the  world.  It  had  been  in  the  hands  of  the  delegates 
for  some  days,  and  they  therefore  came  to  this  day's 
session  prepared  and  expectant,  realising  how  well  the 
i7a 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  179 

proposal  tended  to  meet  the  need  which  had  every  day 
been  emphasised  time  and  again.  On  the  first  day,  the 
work  of  collecting  information  relative  to  the  world-wide 
enterprise  had  been  declared  to  be  incomplete,  and  the 
means  for  its  definite  continuance  demanded.  /[Further, 
the  stupendous  task  of  world-evangelisation  had  been 
categorically  declared  impossible  without  a  far  greater 
measure  of  co-operation ;  and  an  equally  categorical  de- 
mand had  been  made  that  Conference  should  not  disperse 
without  taking  some  definite  step  to  meet  the  need. 
Then,  on  the  second  day,  the  question  of  co-operation  in 
the  Church  on  the  Mission-Field  had  clearly  shown  the 
need  for  a  practical  measure  of  a  similar  kind  at  home. 
On  the  third  day,  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham  had  very 
strongly  appealed  for  some  machinery  for  facilitating  the 
co-ordination  of  educational  support  abroad.  On  the 
fourth  day,  Professor  Cairns  had  urged  that  measures 
should  be  taken  whereby  the  work  begun  on  the  evan- 
gelical science  of  comparative  religions  should  be  con- 
tinued. /  And  yesterday  the  President  of  the  Conference 
had  said  what  he  had  said.  These  issues  were  im- 
portant enough,  and  were  sufficiently  deep  to  stir  the 
spirit  of  the  Conference — how  deeply,  the  significant,  con- 
tinued applause  that  punctuated  each  of  these  demands 
had  shown.  And  yet,  even  these  things  would  have  been 
insufficient  to  account  for  the  peculiar  emotional  in- 
tensity of  the  proceedings  that  day,  the  undefined  sense 
experienced  by  all  that  a  gravely  significant  thing  was 
being  enacted.  There  was  something  else  behind  the 
immediately  obvious.  What  this  something  was  it  is  the 
task  of  this  chapter  to  suggest,  if  indeed  it  is  possible 
to  suggest  that  which  on  the  day  itself  hardly  emerged 
into  the  region  of  the  definite. 

This  chapter,  therefore,  will  best  follow  the  lines  of  the 
last  one,  and,  for  the  same  reasons,  confine  itself  to  giving 


180  EDINBURGH  1910 

an  account  of  the  debate.  For  to-day,  as  yesterday,  the 
discussion  was  the  summary  and  the  commentary  of  the 
Report.  It  showed  the  Conference  at  its  best.  And 
then,  it  was  for  the  first  time  in  the  formal  sense  a  debate, 
that  is  to  say,  the  discussion  of  a  definite  motion  which 
was  to  be  put  from  the  Chair  and  voted  upon.  For  all 
these  reasons  it  behoves  to  concentrate  attention  on  the 
events  of  the  day :  to  understand  these  is  to  master  the 
gist  of  the  Report. 


2. 

The  resolution  was  not  proposed,  however,  till  half-way 
through  the  morning  session,  after  the  "  solemn  act  of 
worship,"  which  the  Chairman  with  manifest  sincerity 
had  called  the  "  most  important  part  of  the  day's  pro- 
ceedings." Before  that,  a  certain  aspect  or  section  of 
the  Report  itself  was  discussed,  and  the  Conference 
listened  to  a  number  of  speeches  on  co-operation  in  the 
mission-field  itself  as  actually  practised  to-day.  The 
object  of  this  was  manifest  :  it  was  to  show  how  invalu- 
able a  thing  co-operation  is,  and  also  how  much  more 
might  be  done  if  more  definite  measures  were  taken 
at  the  home-base  towards  that  end.  It  was  indeed  a 
reminder  of  one  of  the  findings  of  the  Report, — that  the 
progress  of  co-operation  in  the  field  often  discovers  its 
chief  obstacle  in  the  absence  of  co-operation  at  home. 
It  was  a  reminder,  too,  of  the  belief  of  Bishop  Wescott 
that,  in  the  matter  of  co-operation  and  union,  those 
on  the  circumference  might  often  be  ahead  of  those 
at  the  centre.  The  truth  of  this  last,  indeed,  received 
a  striking  parenthetic  endorsement  by  an  Australian  dele- 
gate, the  Bishop  of  Gippsland,  who  made  the  surprising 
announcement  of  the  serious,  practical  contemplation  of 
organic  union  between  the  Anglican  and  Presbyterian 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  181 

communions  of  Australia,  without  any  violation  of  prin- 
ciple on  either  side. 

The  mission-field  which  has  gone  furthest  in  the  matter 
of  co-operation,  and  has  reached  the  most  fruitful  results, 
seemed  to  be  China,  and  it  was  from  that  field  that  the 
most  striking  instances  of  co-operation  were  reported  to 
them.  And  within  the  China  field,  the  West-China 
province  appeared  to  have  gone  furthest  in  this  direction, 
— being  a  new  field,  it  was  one  on  which  experiments 
could  be  tried.  The  Conference  had  already,  in  the  dis- 
cussion on  the  Church  in  the  Mission  Field,  heard  a  ringing 
word  from  China,  "  Hang  on  to  co-operation  like  grim 
death!  "  ;  and  it  now  listened  to  a  succinct  account  of 
what  had  already  been  accomplished  through  steady 
adherence  to  that  maxim  in  Western  China.  There,  it 
was  reported,  was  an  advisory  board,  representative  of 
nine  organisations  working  in  three  provinces  among 
eighty  millions  of  people.  Secondly,  there  was  strict 
comity — a  distinct  delimitation  of  the  territory  occupied 
by  each  organisation.  Thirdly,  under  the  head  of 
education,  there  was  a  common  course  of  study,  common 
examinations,  and  examiners  and  certificates,  and  a 
common  Inspector  of  Schools  for  the  whole  union. 
Fourthly,  there  was  a  union  university  formed  by  the 
federation  of  four  missions,  comprising  normal,  arts, 
theological  and  medical  colleges.  Fifthly,  there  was 
co-operation  under  the  head  of  medical  missions.  Sixthly, 
a  mission  press,  financed  by  one  organisation,  but  working 
for  all.  Seventhly,  a  Christian  magazine  for  all. 
Eighthly,  a  hymn-book  for  all.  Ninthly,  constant 
exchange  of  ideas  by  correspondence  ;  and  lastly,  a  stand- 
ing committee  for  church  union,  the  aim  of  which  is 
definitely  to  work  towards  one  church  organisation  for 
Western  China.  It  was  a  striking  and  most  encouraging 
recital,  and  it  was  followed  by  a  delegate  from  North 


182  EDINBURGH  1910 

China,  who  said  that  in  Shantung  many  of  the  same 
results  had  been  achieved.  Another  told  of  an  educa- 
tional union  in  Pekin,  one  Society  taking  the  theological 
department,  another  the  arts  and  normal  departments, 
a  third  the  medical.  At  that  medical  school  there  are  one 
hundred  students  already,  and  the  Chinese  Government 
has  undertaken  to  give  government  diplomas  to  those  that 
pass  the  final  examination  of  that  college.  A  delegate 
from  Korea  followed,  telling  of  a  union  university  to  be 
shortly  established  in  the  capital,  Seoul.  These  were  by 
no  means  the  only  instances  of  effective  co-operation  on 
the  field  that  were  presented  that  day — striking  instances 
were  reported  from  India,  for  example.  But  the  reports 
from  China  were  in  themselves  enough  to  make  the 
Conference  feel  convinced  by  that  deliberate  finding  of 
the  Commission  on  the  Carrying  of  the  Gospel  to  all  the 
World,  that  through  co-operation  the  forces  in  the  field 
could  be  doubled,  without  the  addition  of  a  single  man  to 
the  existing  staffs. 

Then,  in  regard  to  the  matter  of  church-federation  or 
union,  a  delegate  pointed  out  the  importance  of  a 
"  free  interchange  of  full  members  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  pastor  of  the  Church  from  which  they 
come."  l  The  population  of  China,  he  said,  was  becoming 
very  mobile,  and  therefore  this  matter  was  of  continual 
practical  importance.  This,  again,  raised  the  question 
of  the  two  opposite  principles  upon  which  large  measures 
of  federation  may  take  place,  the  one  local, — among  all 
the  bodies  in  any  area,  forming   a  natural  geographical 

1  An  "Account  of  the  World  Missionary  Conference"  is  bound  to 
report  all  the  different  suggestions  and  aspirations  made  by  delegates 
without  pronouncing  on  their  feasibility.  It  is  obvious  enough  that 
Christian  co-operation  alone  can  prepare  the  ground  for  communal 
federation  or  union.  The  Report  itself  in  its  General  Review  and 
Conclusions  shows  how  far  from  being  unchallenged  some  of  these 
demands  from  China  would  still  be. 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  183 

and  linguistic  unit  ;  the  other  denominational, — among 
similar  denominations  all  over  the  Empire.  It  is  often 
impossible  for  a  Chinese  pastor  to  get  to  a  distant 
Conference  of  the  whole  denomination,  while  he  can 
with  ease  attend  a  local  inter-denominational  one.  As 
the  Report  tersely  remarked,  a  Chinaman  often  finds  he 
feels  more  warmly  towards  his  local  fellow-Christian 
than  his  distant  fellow-denominationalist. 


3- 

It  was  at  this  point  that  the  Conference  had  another 
vivid  insight  into  the  Oriental  point  of  view.  This  was 
a  speech  from  the  Chinese  delegate,  Ch'eng  Ching-yi. 
As  a  terse  seven-minutes  oration,  it  was  a  serious  rival 
to  that  of  the  Norwegian  delegate  on  the  day  before. 
It  was,  in  its  freedom  from  superfluous  matter,  solid  and 
lean  as  an  athlete  in  training.  The  Conference  gasped 
when,  with  two  minutes  of  his  seven  spent,  the  undis- 
turbed Celestial  announced  that  he  wished  to  speak  on 
the  subject  under  seven  heads  in  the  remaining  five 
minutes  !  And  he  did  it  easily  too,  and  gave  one  of  the 
seven  heads  a  threefold  subdivision  into  the  bargain. 

The  speech  was  amongst  other  things  a  significant, 
though  unconscious,  commentary  on  two  warnings  given 
by  two  bishops  concerning  this  matter  of  unity  in  the 
mission-field.  The  first  of  these  wras  by  the  Bishop  of 
Hankow,  who  was  quoted  in  the  Report  to  have  said 
that  the  alternative  to  meeting  the  Chinese  demand  for  a 
united  Church  was  that  "  we  forfeit  our  position  of  leader- 
ship among  the  Christian  forces  of  China."  In  the  mind 
of  Chinamen,  he  said  in  effect,  national  unity  has  its 
Christian  counterpart  in  church  unity,  and  therefore  the 
more  ardently  nationalist  they  become,  the  more  they 
demand  one  Church  for  China. 


184  EDINBURGH  1910 

"  If  the  missionaries  cannot  supply  this  demand  for  leadership 
m  the  practical  development  of  Christian  unity,  .  .  .  that  leader- 
ship will  undoubtedly  arise  outside  the  ranks  of  the  missionaries, 
and  perhaps  even  outside  the  ranks  of  the  duly  authorised  ministers 
of  the  Christian  Church  in  China." 

This  was  one  of  the  warnings  upon  which  the  speech  of 
Cheng  Ching-yi  constituted  so  illuminating  a  comment. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  it  equally  illustrated  the  justice 
of  the  other  warning — that  of  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham, 
made  in  the  discussion  of  the  Report  on  the  Church  in  the 
Mission-Field.  His  point  (it  will  be  remembered)  was 
that  it  is  absolutely  imperative  for  Christians  to  be  think- 
ing out,  to  be  giving  closer  and  more  earnest  thought,  to 
what  are  the  essential  constitutive  elements  of  Church 
unity.  The  keenness  of  the  speech  of  the  Chinese  delegate 
proclaimed  the  truth  of  the  first  warning — that  the 
Chinese  may  soon  be  acting  for  themselves  in  this  matter. 
And  its  very  artlessness  showed  how  completely  unaware 
of  the  real  difficulties  and  essentialities  of  the  question 
they  would  be  if  they  did  so  act ;  thus  unconsciously 
endorsing  the  second. 

Here,  then,  is  this  significant  speech  : — 

"  As  a  representative  of  the  Chinese  Church,  I  speak  entirely 
from  the  Chinese  standpoint.  We  may,  and  we  may  not,  all  a^ree, 
but  I  feel  it  is  my  duty  to  present  before  you  the  mind  of  the 
Chinese  Church  as  frankly  as  possible. 

"  The  Christian  federation  movement  occupies  a  chief  place 
in  the  hearts  of  our  leading  Christian  men  in  China,  and  they 
welcome  every  effort  that  is  made  towards  that  end.  This  is 
noticeably  in  the  provinces  of  Szchuen,  Honan,  Shantung  and 
Chihli.  In  educational  work,  evangelistic  work,  and  so  on,  the 
Churches  joined  hand  in  hand,  and  the  result  of  this  is  most 
encouraging. 

"  Since  the  Chinese  Christians  have  enjoyed  the  sweetness  of  such 
a  unity,  they  long  for  more  and  look  for  yet  greater  things.  They 
are  watching  with  keen  eyes,  and  listening  with  attentive  ears,  for 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  185 

what  this  Conference  will  show  and  say  to  them  concerning  this 
all-important  question.  I  am  sure  they  will  not  be  disappointed. 
"  Speaking  plainly,  we  hope  to  see  in  the  near  future  a  united 
Christian  Church  without  any  denominational  distinctions. 
This  may  seem  somewhat  peculiar  to  some  of  you,  but,  friends, 
do  not  forget  to  view  us  from  our  standpoint,  and  if  you  fail  to  do 
that,  the  Chinese  will  remain  always  a  mysterious  people  to  you. 
...  In  dealing  with  such  a  great  problem,  one  is  naturally 
led  to  consider  the  following  points  : — 

"  i.  Such  a  union  is  needed  for  these  reasons  : — 

"  (a)  Things  that  really  help  the  growing  movement  of  the  self- 
support  and  self-government  of  the  Church  in  China  are 
welcomed.     A  united  effort,  both  spiritual  and  physical, 
is  absolutely  necessary  [to  this  end], 
"  (b)  Speaking  generally,  denominationalism  has  never  interested 
the  Chinese  mind.     He  finds  no  delight  in  it,  but  some- 
times he  suffers  for  it ! 
"  (c)  Owing  to  the  powerful  force  of  heathenism  from  without, 
and  the  feebleness  of  the  Church  from  within,  the  Christians 
are  compelled  to  unite  in  building  up  a  defence  of  the 
Church. 
"2.  From  the  Chinese  standpoint,  there  is  nothing  impossible 
about  such  a  union.     Such  difficulties  as  may  be  experienced  will 
be  due  to  our  Western  friends,  and  not  to  ourselves.   The  difficulties 
are  possibilities  only,  and  must  not  be  allowed  to  overshadow 
the  advantages  of  the  union  that  I  speak  of. 

"3.  In  China,  and  for  the  Chinese,  such  union  is  certainly  de- 
sirable. China,  with  all  her  imperfections,  is  a  country  that 
loves  unity  both  in  national  and  family  life. 

"  4.  There  is  no  time  more  important  than  the  present.  These 
days  are  days  of  foundations  from  both  political  and  religious 
standpoints.  The  future  China  will  largely  depend  on  what  is 
done  at  the  present  time.  This  is  a  time  of  unspeakable  responsi- 
bilities, and  we  have  to  be  most  careful  of  what  we  do  now. 

"5.  The  Church  of  Christ  is  universal,  not  only  irrespective 
of  denominations,  but  also  irrespective  of  nationalities — '  All  one 
in  Christ  Jesus.'  '  The  world  is  '  (to  use  a  Chinese  expression) 
*  one  family,  and  China  is  a  member  of  that  family.' 

"  6.  Will  such  a  united  Church  in  China  remain  unbroken  for 


186  EDINBURGH  1910 

ever  ?  is  a  question  I  can  only  answer  by  saying,  '  I  do  not  know.' 
But  what  it  will  do  itself  is  one  thing,  and  what  we  press  it 
to  do  is  another.  We  can  only  deal  with  what  is  to  hand  to-day, 
and  the  unknown  future  will  settle  its  own  affairs. 

"  7.  I  would,  if  you  will  allow  me,  make  one  suggestion,  i.e., 
that  this  Conference  will  recommend  that  the  Continuation 
Committee,  when  appointed,  make  careful  investigation,  and  will 
consult  all  the  Chinese  pastors  and  Christian  leaders,  and  obtain 
from  them  a  free  and  frank  expression  of  their  opinion  as  to  the 
needs  of  such  a  united  effort,  and  the  best  methods  to  bring  it 
about.  For,  after  all,  it  is  not  your  particular  denomination,  nor 
even  is  it  your  particular  mission  that  you  are  working  for,  but  the 
establishment  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  China  that  you  have  in 
view. 

"  It  is  the  earnest  hope  of  your  present  speaker,  humble  as  he  is, 
that  this  Conference  will  not  allow  the  present  opportunity  to 
pass  away  without  taking  some  definite  action. 

"  In  conclusion,  let  us  go  with  our  Divine  Master  up  on  the  top 
of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  there  we  shall  obtain  a  wider,  broader, 
and  larger  view  of  the  needs  of  the  Church  and  the  World." 

The  Conference  might  well  feel  this  challenge  the  best 
possible  introduction  to  the  debate  that  now  followed. 
It  was  also  not  surprised  when,  on  the  next  day,  it  was 
found  that  Cheng  Ching-yi  had  been  appointed  the 
representative  for  China  on  the  "  Continuation  Com- 
mittee," the  motion  for  establishing  which  was  now  to 
be  discussed. 

4- 

And  now — "  We  now  come  to  our  solemn  act  of  wor- 
ship," said  the  Chairman,  with  that  honest  impressive 
way  of  his.  "  We  shall  sing  a  hymn,  and  then  let  the 
Stewards  shut  the  doors,  that  none  may  come  in  or  go 
out.  .  .  ." 

And  so  for  the  space  of  half  an  hour  there  was  silence 
in  a  Hall  hermetically  sealed,  as  it  were,  from  the  voices 
and  distractions  of  the  outside  world. 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  187 

Silence,  indeed.  For  on  that  day,  as  on  some  of  the 
other  days,  much  of  the  half-hour  was  spent  in  united 
silence.  Dr  J.  O.  F.  Murray,  Master  of  Selwyn  College, 
Cambridge,  conducted  the  service  on  that  day  ;  and 
when,  in  leading  the  Conference's  confession  of  the  sin 
involved  in  our  unhappy  divisions,  he  continued  in  the 
words  of  the  General  Confession,  it  seemed  to  be  taken 
up  spontaneously  all  over  the  hall,  a  volume  of  subdued 
sound.  .  .  . 

It  was  in  the  morning  of  this  day,  when  the  worship 
of  the  Conference  was  led  by  Dr  Chatterji,  the  venerable 
delegate  from  India,  that  the  delegates  had  joined  in 
repeating  together  the  Apostles'  Creed.  .  .  . 

"  I  believe  in  One  God,  the  Father  Almighty, 
Maker  of  Heaven  and  Earth  ; 

And  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  Only  Son,  Our  Lord  .  .  . 
i  believe  in  the  holy  ghost,  the  holy  catholic 
Church,  the  Communion  of  Saints  .  .  .  Amen. 


5- 

The  Chairman  of  the  Commission,  Sir  Andrew  H.  L. 
Fraser,  late  Lieut.-Governor  of  Bengal,  now  stood  up  to 
move  the  resolution  relating  to  the  formation  of  a  Con- 
tinuation Committee  for  the  carrying  on  of  the  work  of  the 
present  Conference.  The  scope  of  the  proposed  Com- 
mittee appears  from  the  first  article  of  the  resolution, 
with  its  seven  subdivisions  : — 

"  That  a  Continuation  Committee  of  the  World  Missionary 
Conference  be  appointed,  international  and  representative  in 
character,  to  carry  out,  on  the  lines  of  the  Conference  itself,  which 
are  inter-denominational  and  do  not  involve  the  idea  of  organic 
and  ecclesiastical  union,  the  following  duties  : — 

"  (i)  To  maintain  in  prominence  the  idea  of  the  World  Missionary 
Conference  as  a  means  of  co-ordinating  missionary  work,  of  laying 


188  EDINBURGH  1910 

sound  lines  for  future  development,  and  of  generating  and  claiming 
by  corporate  action  fresh  stores  of  spiritual  force  for  the  evangelisa- 
tion of  the  world. 

"  (2)  To  finish  any  further  investigations,  or  any  formulation  of 
the  results  of  investigations,  which  may  remain  after  the  World 
Missionary  Conference  is  over,  and  may  be  referred  to  it. 

"  (3)  To  consider  when  a  further  World  Missionary  Conference 
is  desirable,  and  to  make  the  initial  preparations. 

"  (4)  To  devise  plans  for  maintaining  the  intercourse  which  the 
World  Missionary  Conference  has  stimulated  between  different 
bodies  of  workers,  e.g.,  by  literature  or  by  a  system  of  correspond- 
ence and  mutual  report,  or  the  like. 

"  (5)  To  place  its  services  at  the  disposal  of  the  Home  Boards 
in  any  steps  which  they  may  be  led  to  take  (in  accordance  with  the 
recommendation  of  more  than  one  Commission)  towards  closer 
mutual  counsel  and  practical  co-operation. 

"  (6)  To  confer  with  the  Societies  and  Boards  as  to  the  best 
method  of  working  towards  the  formation  of  such  a  permanent 
International  Missionary  Committee  as  is  suggested  by  the  Com- 
missions of  the  Conference  and  by  various  missionary  bodies  apart 
from  the  Conference.1 

"  (7)  And  to  take  such  steps  as  may  seem  desirable  to  carry  out, 
by  the  formation  of  Special  Committees  or  otherwise,  any  practical 
suggestions  made  in  the  Reports  of  the  Commissions." 

Such  was  the  essential  part  of  the  resolution.  It  was 
now  moved,  seconded  and  discussed. 

The  Commission  which  brought  forward  the  resolution 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Commission  on  Co-operation 
and  the  promotion  of  Unity.     And  although  the  resolu- 

"  1  The  principles  on  which  the  Commission  are  agreed  constructive 
work  could  be  built  are  stated  in  their  Report  as  follows : — 

"  (a)  It  should  from  the  beginning  be  precluded  from  handling 
matters  which  are  concerned  with  the  doctrinal  or  ecclesiastical 
differences  of  the  various  denominations. 

"  (b)  This  being  assured,  it  would  be  desirable  that  it  should  be  as 
widely  representative  as  possible. 

"  (c)  Yet  it  should  be  a  purely  consultative  and  advisory  Association, 
exercising  no  authority  but  such  as  would  accrue  to  it  through  the 
intrinsic  value  of  the  services  that  it  may  be  able  to  render." 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  189 

tion  itself  had  more  direct  bearing  on  the  former  than  the 
latter  aspect,  it  was  right  and  it  was  relevant  that  a  good 
deal  should  be  said  on  the  wider  question.  The  Report 
had  distinctly  paved  the  way  for  the  discussion  of  unity. 
And  the  Chairman,  in  presenting  that  Report,  had  almost 
invited  such  discussion,  when  he  said,  "  We  in  our  Com- 
mission and  you  in  this  Conference  have  surely  had  before 
you  the  vision  of  unity,  a  vision  fair  and  beautiful,  far 
better  and  far  higher  than  anything  we  have  dreamed  of 
before.  ..."  Full  justice  was  indeed  done  to  both 
the  immediate  and  the  more  remote  aspects  of  the 
question.  But  this  should  not  make  those  who  were  not 
present  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  immediate  question 
alone  before  the  House  was — the  taking  of  a  single, 
small,  proximate  step  towards  giving  effect  to  the 
demands  that  had  been  made  from  all  quarters  for  some 
machinery  of  co-operation. 


6. 

Much  witness  was  heard  regarding  the  genuine  services 
which  this  Continuation  Committee  would  render  to  the 
cause. 

Dr  Julius  Richter,  the  German  historian  of  missions,  to 
whom  the  great  value  of  the  work  done  by  the  eight 
Commissions  in  the  science  of  missions  naturally  ap- 
pealed, emphasised  strongly  the  usefulness  of  such  a 
Committee  in  carrying  on  that  "  close  and  united  study 
of  missionary  problems."  Most  of  the  Commissions,  he 
said,  were  strongly  under  the  impression  that  their  work 
is  not  yet  finished. 

"  Studying  the  history  of  Christian  missions  in  different  fields, 
I  have  often  had  the  impression  of  a  great  busy  municipal  site, 
or  newly  started  township,  where  it  is  hoped  that  a  very  big  city 
shall  be  built  up.     But  there  is  no  underlying  plan  ;   everybody 


190  EDINBURGH  1910 

builds  where  he  chooses,  according  to  his  own  ideas,  often  without 
regard  of  his  neighbour  and  of  the  future  development  of  the  city. 
So  the  different  missionary  organisations  are  building  more  or 
less  according  to  their  own  ideas,  every  one  trying  to  incorporate 
as  much  as  possible  of  its  own  peculiarities.  Would  it  not  be 
advisable  in  such  cases  that,  by  friendly  consultation,  the  new 
settlers  should  institute  some  sort  of  central  organisation,  with, 
however,  restricted  powers,  to  bring  harmony  into  the  scattered 
endeavours,  to  concentrate  effort  on  needy  points.  These  days 
have  brought  us  again  in  view  of  the  great  mission  fields,  of  the 
great,  overwhelming  tasks  lying  before  us,  of  the  pressing  obligations. 
And  on  the  other  hand  they  have  given  us  a  strong  impression  of 
the  comparative  weakness  of  our  own  forces,  and  of  our  isolated 
position.  How  useful  and  helpful  would  some  sort  of  central 
organisation  be  !  " 

The  same  point  was  urged  with  equal  emphasis  by 
Dr  Arthur  J.  Brown,  the  Chairman  of  the  North  American 
Committee  of  that  Commission.  Mission  work  all  over 
the  world,  he  said,  is  characterised  by  a  lack  of  unity,  of 
movement,  of  breadth  of  conception,  and  of  definiteness 
of  plan.  The  state  of  the  Church  militant  is  the  state  of 
Israel  in  the  Book  of  Judges.  Yet  surely  we  all  see,  he 
said,  that  liberty  does  not  necessarily  involve  chaos  ! 
And  the  speaker  who  succeeded  him,  a  Canadian  lay- 
man, showed  how  specially  co-operation  appealed  to  the 
lay  mind.  Five  dollars  or  £i  can  be  got,  he  said,  for  a 
really  efficient  institution,  for  every  dollar  or  4s.  which 
could  be  obtained  for  a  weak  one,  appealing  to  denomi- 
national loyalty  only.     "  To-day,"  he  continued — 

"  To-day  I  believe  you  can  appeal  to  the  mind  of  all  parties, 
and  supply  all  the  money  that  the  Boards  require  for  this  advance, 
if  you  tell  them  that  it  is  the  policy  of  the  whole  Church  to  reach 
the  whole  world,  but  not  if  you  try  to  maintain  competing  institu- 
tions in  a  non-Christian  land." 

The  "  supporting  constituency  "  (as  he  phrased  it)  of 
both  Canada  and  the  United  States  would  feel  that  this 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  191 

proposal  of  a  Continuation  Committee  would  be  com- 
pletely in  line  both  with  their  own  ideals  and  their  own 
local  organisation.  For  example,  in  1909  there  was  held 
a  very  large  and  important  convention  to  consider  the 
missionary  responsibility  of  the  Canadian  churches  to  the 
incoming  settlers  in  Canada,  and  the  responsibility  of 
Canadians  for  their  share  in  world-wide  evangelisation. 
Through  that  convention  a  resolution  favouring  co-opera- 
tion everywhere  was  submitted  to  the  representative 
bodies  of  Anglican,  Presbyterian,  Congregationalist, 
Baptist,  and  Methodist  bodies  in  Canada,  and  unani- 
mously approved  by  each. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  speaker  from  Canada.  Later  on 
in  the  debate  a  very  tall  young  delegate  from  the  western 
plains  of  Canada  underscored  the  points  made  by  his 
fellow-countryman.  "  The  longest  man  in  the  Con- 
ference," as  he  called  himself,  with  eagle-like  face  and 
eyes,  spoke  with  prodigious  animation.  He,  too,  repre- 
sented the  layman's  point  of  view,  and  speaking  of  the 
laymen's  movement  in  the  North  American  Continent 
(of  which  the  Conference  was  to  hear  much  more  on  the 
closing  day  of  the  Conference),  he  said  that  Christian 
laymen  were  not  simply  talking  about  union,  they  were 
actually  doing  the  work  in  their  united  relationships, 
and  that  they  believed  in  the  evangelisation  of  the  world 
in  this  generation,  provided  there  was  universal  co-operation 
for  the  task.  Men  would  give,  he  agreed  with  his  confrere, 
to  a  united  appeal : — 

"  On  one  occasion  a  Presbyterian,  an  Anglican,  and  a  Baptist 
went  to  a  wealthy  Methodist  to  ask  him  to  increase  his  subscription. 
Imagine  a  Methodist  up  against  that  kind  of  combination  !  .  .  . 
Only  one  thing  could  happen,  and  that  thing  happened  :  he  gave 
a  magnificent  subscription  to  missions. "  .   .  . 

The  "  longest  man  in  the  Conference  "  brought  the 
prairie  air  into  the  Conference  Hall,  and  the  bell  which, 


192  EDINBURGH  1910 

to  their  regret,  rang  him  down  found  them  breathless 
but  refreshed. 

And  similarly,  the  Chairman  of  a  federal  council  of 
churches  in  the  United  States,  "  with  a  communicant 
membership  of  17,000,000,  representing  fully  50,000,000 
of  the  population,"  showed  with  what  readiness  and  joy 
the  promoters  of  such  local  achievements  in  co-operation 
would  welcome  anything  which,  like  this  proposed  Con- 
tinuation Committee,  made  towards  the  universal  applica- 
tion of  the  principle. 

For  the  Continental  constituencies,  Dr  J.  Richter,  in 
the  speech  already  mentioned,  had  shown  how  very 
greatly  the  Societies,  and  specially  the  smaller  Societies 
on  the  Continent  of  Europe,  where  the  missionary  move- 
ment was  not  yet  strong,  would  benefit  by  the  proposal 
now  before  the  House.  Twenty-five  Continental 
Societies,  he  said,  representing  by  far  the  greater  part  of 
the  missionary  energy  of  the  Continent,  had  laid  before 
the  Conference  a  comprehensive  petition  to  establish 
just  such  a  Continuation  Committee. 

In  the  restricted  sphere  of  the  leading  German  mis- 
sionary societies  they  had  had  a  central  organisation  for 
twenty-five  years,  called  the  Ausschuss,  and  it  had 
become  an  indispensable  factor  in  the  German  mission 
life.  It  acted  as  intermediary  with  the  German  govern- 
ment ;  it  shaped  "  the  educational  policy  of  the  missions 
and  of  the  Colonial  Government."  And  it  was  just 
because  they  in  Germany  had  seen  the  value  of  the 
principle  of  concentration  that  they  so  strongly  believed  in 
and  supported  the  international  extension  of  the  same 
principle ;  from  lack  of  which,  he  said — from  lack  of 
"  effectual  representation  "  in  the  world-wide  movement 
— they  had  suffered  much  in  the  past.  The  great  and 
leading  Societies  in  the  English-speaking  world  should 
feel  their  responsibility  to  help  "  their  weaker  brethren," 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  193 

and  it  would  be  worthy  of  a  World  Missionary  Conference, 
which  represented  Christian  missions  as  a  world-power 
manifested  in  service,  to  contribute  notably  to  helping 
the  weaker  countries  and  societies  in  their  need. — Truly, 
the  strengthening  of  the  ties  which  the  Edinburgh 
Conference  effected  between  the  Continental  movement 
and  that  in  the  English-speaking  world,  is  destined  to 
strengthen  the  whole  world-wide  cause  ;  and  the  in- 
creased knowledge  of  the  Continental  missions  gained 
by  those  in  Britain  and  America  is  not  least  destined  to 
benefit  the  latter. 


It  was  not  forgotten  in  the  discussion,  however,  that  the 
present  resolution  was  only  a  first,  and  to  some  extent 
a  temporary  step.  The  perusal  of  Clause  (6)  in  the 
resolution  was  a  reminder  that  a  Continuation  Com- 
mittee of  this  Conference  was  not  the  same  thing  as  the 
International  Committee,  the  formation  of  which  had 
been  suggested  by  more  than  one  Commission. 

Naturally,  such  a  Committee  could  come  into  exist- 
ence only  after  much  consultation  with  the  Missionary 
Societies  and  Boards.  The  Continuation  Committee  of 
the  Conference  was  only  a  step  towards  that  end,  though 
a  great  and  important  one,  because  of  the  real  repre- 
sentativeness and  intrinsic  weight  of  the  Conference 
itself.  Lord  William  Gascoyne-Cecil,  indeed,  was  able 
to  support  the  resolution  just  because  the  proposed 
Committee  would  be  limited  (he  thought)  to  studying  the 
question,  so  that  subsequent  steps  would  only  be  decided 
on  after  due  consideration  and  thought.  The  noble 
lord  concluded  with  "  a  small  sweet  idyll,"  like  a  frag- 
ment of  some  georgic  on  bee-keeping,  to  illustrate  his 
point  :    as  an  expert  bee-keeper  he  had  often  had  "  the 


194  EDINBURGH  1910 

awkward  duty  of  taking  the  honey  from  the  bees/'  and 
had  learned  the  absolute  necessity  of  taking  away  the 
frames  very  quietly  and  gradually.  If  and  when  the 
stinging  begins,  there  is  no  saying  when  it  will  stop.  .  .  . 
The  almost  equally  delicate  task  of  making  the  applica- 
tions and  identifications  of  his  parable  was  left  by  this 
wary  bee-keeper  to  the  many  leaders  of  the  Societies  and 
the  Churches  among  his  audience.  Perhaps  Dr  Ward- 
law  Thompson  had  that  idyllic  simile  in  mind  when  he 
said  that  he  did  not  think  it  "  took  much  imagination 
to  forecast  some  of  the  leading  articles  in  some  of  the 
newspapers  which  would  appear  next  week.  Yes,  but 
the  leading  articles  would  not  be  the  only  thing.  There 
would  be  men  on  both  sides.  ..." 

The  prophetic  power  which  Virgil  attributes  to  the  bees 
had  certainly  communicated  itself  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society  that  afternoon. 

However  these  things  may  be,  the  meaning  of  "  the 
honey  "  in  the  parable  was  clear.  It  was  an  organisa- 
tion greatly  needed,  yet  difficult  to  win  ;  something 
more  advanced  than  this  Continuation  Committee, 
though  less  ambitious  than  a  plan  for  ecclesiastical 
reconstruction  ;  something  with  no  authority  save 
that  derived  from  the  indispensableness  of  its  services, 
yet  on  the  other  hand,  truly  representative  of  Boards  and 
Societies  all  over  the  world.  Such  an  International  Com- 
mittee would  be  indeed  an  immense  step — a  step,  Dr 
Eugene  Stock  seemed  to  indicate,  towards  that  "  union  " 
through  which  the  "  unity  "  that  already  exists  might 
find  a  local  habitation  and  a  name,  and  a  true  organ  of 
expression.  Thus,  too,  Silas  McBee,  the  Editor  of  "  The 
Churchman,"  a  man  who  has  literally  given  his  life  to  the 
cause  of  unity.  As  Vice-Chairman  of  this  Commission, 
he  had  not  only  received  the  correspondence,  but  had 
gone   about   everywhere   getting   into   touch   with   the 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  195 

leaders  of  the  Churches,  and  his  speech  on  this  occasion, 
with  its  beautiful  Christian  spirit,  showed  that  such 
labours  had  not  been  in  vain.  Thus,  too,  another  notable 
speaker,}  [Dr  J.  Campbell  Gibson,  the  Chairman  of  the 
Commission  on  the  Church  in  the  Mission  Field.  We 
have  unity  by  simply  being  in  Christ,  he  insisted.  But 
we  need  organised  expression  of  it \  "a  body  which 
could  speak  with  one  voice  for  all  trie  missions  of  the 
world."  He  found  a  good  omen  in  the  name  "  Con- 
tinuation Committee  "  :  it  would  continue,  upwards 
in  an  inclined  plane,  to  something  on  a  far  higher  level. 
Lord  William  Gascoyne-Cecil's  simile  of  the  jerking  off  of 
a  bee-frame  was  paralleled  by  this  speaker  in  his  own  way. 
"  If  you  attempt  to  reach  a  high  level,  a  level  yet  beyond 
your  reach,  per  saltum  and  at  once,  you  may  not  manage 
it,  but  as  long  as  we  are  moving  up  an  inclined  plane 
[we]  will  eventually  reach  the  end/'  When  men  who 
are  expressing  deep  underlying  principles,  but  in  a 
different  way,  perhaps,  come  together,  they  are  doing  a 
thing  it  is  deeply  advantageous  to  do  and  to  learn  to  do. 
And  he  concluded  : — 

"  While  I  rejoice  equally  in  co-operation,  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
minds  of  Christian  men  can  ultimately  rest  in  less  than  that  highest 
level  of  all,  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  God,  of  which  we  have 
robbed  ourselves  too  long,  and  which  it  may  cause  us  weary 
years  to  restore ;  but  it  will  be  restored  by  our  Lord  Himself, 
if  we  seek  it  in  humility,  with  infinite  patience,  and  with  an  endless 
consideration  for  the  difficulties  of  our  brethren." 

These  words — and  they  did  not  stand  alone — showed 
how  naturally  the  idea  of  the  Continuation  Committee,  with 
its  expected  termination  in  an  International  Committee 
of  Missions,  led  the  minds  of  the  whole  Conference  to 
contemplate  the  vision  of  a  higher  unity  still.  It  was  as 
if  all  seemed  to  be  feeling,  and  all  to  be  confessing,  the 
need  of  a  One  Body  to  give  outward  and  visible  expres- 


196  EDINBURGH  1910 

sion    to    the   inward   and   spiritual   grace  of   the  One 
Spirit. 

Thus  the  Continuation  Committee  seemed  to  become 
transmuted  by  some  sort  of  spiritual  alchemy  into  a 
symbol  of  something  greater  far.  Otherwise,  what  was 
there  in  so  modest  a  proposal  to  call  forth  two  such 
utterances  as  these  : — 

"  (This  Committee)  could  not  have  been  launched  except  in  such 
an  atmosphere  as  that  which  we  find  ourselves  breathing  in  this 
Conference.  Ten  years  ago  it  would  have  been,  and  was,  im- 
possible !  " 

Or  this,  from  another  seasoned  veteran  in  missionary 
movements  and  international  missionary  conferences  : — 

"  My  impulse  in  speaking  just  now  is  that  I  want  to  sing  a 
doxology.  I  have  come  to  a  point  in  my  religious  experience  in 
this  Conference  which  five  years  ago  I  think  I  should  not  have 
dreamed  of !  " 

8. 

In  reflecting  on  the  significance  of  the  resolution  before 
the  House  that  day,  it  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the 
Edinburgh  Conference  had  succeeded  in  bringing  together 
men  of  far  more  divergent  types  of  Christian  thought  and 
Christian  belief  than  had  assembled  at  New  York  in 
1900  ;  and  yet  was  finding  possible  what  the  delegate 
already  quoted  said  had  proved  impossible  in  1900, 
at  a  Conference  which  in  composition  was  homogeneity 
itself  compared  with  that  of  1910.  Thus  the  resolution 
was  a  doubly  notable  event. 

But  not  only  were  there  now  present  men  representing 
schools  of  thought,  which  were  oftener  polemically  con- 
trasted with  each  other  in  books,  pamphlets,  and 
church  magazines  than  represented  together  on  one 
religious  platform  :  but  in  the  discussions  themselves, 
these  differences  had  not  by  any  means  been  concealed, 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  197 

but  frankly,  sometimes  with  very  great  frankness,  had 
been  touched  upon.  Thus  the  resolution  was  a  trebly 
notable  event,  since  it  registered  a  new  conception  of  the 
function  of  a  common  platform — a  platform  on  which 
men  might  learn  from  each  others'  differences,  however 
wide,  through  faith  in  the  amount  of  unity,  which,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  had  enabled  them  to  come  together. 

Had  it  been  otherwise — had  the  Conference  been 
tamely  homogeneous^its  unanimity  would  have  been  a 
viscous  adhesiveness  rather  than  the  "  definite  coherent 
heterogeneity"  in  which  both  Herbert  Spencer  and  Hegel, 
in  their  different  ways,  have  taught  us  to  see  the  attain- 
ment of  successively  higher  stages  of  unity  and  of  life,  j 

It  must  be  admitted  that  some  of  the  Anglican  members, 
to  whom  the  Conference  was  chiefly  indebted  for  this 
saving  element  of  heterogeneity,  occasionally  went 
beyond  the  limitation  within  which  all  the  delegates 
without  distinction  had  to  keep,  that  is  to  say,  the  bring- 
ing of  individual  ecclesiastical  or  other  dogmatic  views 
into  the  discussion.  They  were,  however,  listened  to  with 
very  great  patience,  probably  because  the  delegates 
realised  that  under  the  circumstances  these  men  were 
morally  bound  to  make  their  position  clear,  to  them- 
selves, to  their  hearers,  and  to  their  constituency ; — 
possibly  too,  because  they  were  interested  to  hear  what 
that  position  was : — so  that  the  trespass  was  more  against 
the  letter  than  the  spirit.  The  tribute  to  the  fearless 
honesty  of  the  one  party  ought  to  be  balanced  by  a  tribute 
to  the  exemplary  patience  of  the  other,  under  a  trial  which 
just  occasionally  it  seemed  difficult  to  suffer  gladly. 
Great,  however,  are  the  miracles  wrought  by  the  light 
touch :  the  most  flagrant  breaker  of  this  Conference 
taboo  was  a  certain  wise  Bishop,  who  gave  the  Conference 
the  joy  of  a  great  laugh  in  his  first  sentence  :  whom  the 
Conference    thereupon,   in   gratitude    for   that    benefit, 


198  EDINBURGH  1910 

allowed  to  say  whatsoever  he  listed.  He  certainly  took 
his  full  allowance.  '  The  Chair,'  his  ringer  all  the  time 
on  the  meeting's  pulse,  was  ready  to  stop  the  lene  tor- 
mentum  if  the  patient  showed  signs  of  "having  had 
enough."  But  all  seemed  well.  '  The  Chair '  decided  to 
let  it  go,  and  this  illegal  tormentor  actually  retired  amid 
the  cheers  of  the  sufferers. 

Perhaps  this  courageous  Bishop  derived  advantage 
from  the  fact  that  those  sufferers  had,  a  few  minutes 
previously,  been  given  a  welcome  opportunity  of  relieving 
their  feelings  in  a  congenial  fashion.  "  We  are  not 
ready,"  had  remarked  a  delegate,  in  a  parenthesis 
less  obviously  relevant  to  the  subject  than  to  the 
atmosphere,  "  we  are  not  ready  as  American  Christians 
to  apologise  for  the  Protestant  Reformation  !  " — 

— The  moment  when  steam  first  issues  from  the  safety- 
valve  is  a  marked  one.  Not  otherwise  the  noise  of  the 
escaping  steam  which  burst  forth  at  this  point.   .   .    . 

And  which  benefited  the  genial  torturer  who  followed 
at  least  as  much  as  those  whose  feelings  it  had 
relieved. 


The  question  how  far  inclusiveness  can,  or  should, 
be  carried  seemed,  in  fact,  to  have  been  solved  auto- 
matically. It  should  go  just  exactly  as  far  as  it  can  go  : — 
that  is  to  say,  no  differences  however  important  need 
ever  be  allowed,  even  by  the  most  conscientious  holder 
of  them,  to  count  against  the  naked  fact,  that  those  who 
hold  those  different  views  have  nevertheless  found  it 
possible  to  meet  and  to  confer  together  on  a  common 
work.  Again,  it  can  go  just  exactly  as  far  as  it  should, 
and  cannot  in  the  nature  of  things  go  further  :  there- 
fore no  fear  need  be  entertained  lest  it  be  going  too  far. 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  199 

In  two  somewhat  different  senses  of  the  words,  in- 
clusiveness  at  interdenominational  Conferences  never 
can  go  too  far.  Thus  the  principle,  Let  all  come  who 
will,  is  a  "  safety  "  one. 

A  Baptist  delegate  from  Delhi  was  really  intending 
the  same  principle,  and  illustrated  it  humorously  by  a 
reminiscence  : 

"  A  great  many  years  ago  when  my  mind  was  first  agitated  on 
this  subject,  I  thought  that  we  might  co-operate  in  industrial  work, 
and  I  looked  at  my  big  ecclesiastical  brother  [in  the  Cambridge 
Mission  to  Delhi]  from  top  to  toe,  to  see  what  similarity  there 
was  between  him  and  myself.  And  I  found  there  was  nothing — till 
we  got  to  our  boots.  (Loud  laughter.)  You  must  admit  that  when 
you  unite  on  boots  you  are  on  the  road  at  any  rate  to  co-operation." 
(Loud  laughter.) 

But  this  philosophy,  which  the  author  of  "  Sartor 
Resartus  "  would  have  appreciated,  admits  of  extension. 
Baptists  and  High  Anglicans  are  not  the  only  persons 
who  wear  boots.  And  it  was  more  than  once  pointed  out 
during  the  discussion,  on  that  and  other  days,  that  no 
measure  of  missionary  co-operation  could  be  considered 
complete  until  it  included  all  who  were  doing  mission 
work  among  non-Christians  in  the  name  of  their  one 
Master,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  including  Greek  Church 
Christians,  with  a  great  Japan  mission  under  the  well- 
known  Bishop  Nicolai,  and  Roman  Catholic  Christians, 
with  missions  all  over  Asia  and  Africa.  "  I  can  bear  testi- 
mony," said  one  delegate,  "  to  the  fact  that  it  is  possible 
for  us  in  a  really  practicable  way  to  co-operate  with  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church, —  and  remember  that  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  does  not  mean  the  Vatican  or  the 
various  hierarchies,  but  the  great  mass  of  devout  people 
we  are  constantly  in  touch  with.  We  can  affect  them  ; 
we  can  so  melt  their  minds  as  to  affect  the  central  body." 
"  It  is  for  us  to  shame  Rome  out  of  her  proud  loneliness 


200  EDINBURGH  1910 

.  .  .  an  aloofness  which  is  more  pathetic  than  it  is 
splendid  .  .  .  ;  it  is  for  us  to  startle  the  Greek  Church 
out  of  her  starved  orthodoxy  :  .  .  .  because  God  is 
our  Sufficiency !  "  The  speaker  indicated  in  fact — or 
so  it  seemed — that  his  own  personal  inclusion  in  the 
Conference  solved  in  principle  the  problem  of  the  in- 
clusion in  it  of  all  who  call  themselves  Christians  without 
distinction.  And, — so  far  as  the  mere  inclusion  of 
Christians  from  those  denominations  in  a  World 
Missionary  Conference  goes,  —  there  were  several 
indications  that  this  was  a  conception  that  need  by 
no  means  excessively  perturb  either  Roman  Catholics 
or  Protestants  ;  and  that  the  idea  of  seeing  Bishop 
Nicolai  and  Monsignor  Bonomelli,  seated  on  the  same 
bench  with  Anglican  Bishop,  Scottish  Moderator,  and 
Nonconformist  President — all  of  them  humbly  obedient 
to  the  absolute  and  indeed  infallible  ex  cathedra  rulings 
of  John  R.  Mott — was  in  no  sense  and  by  no  means  a 
visionary  one.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  it  was  a  well- 
known  Nonconformist  delegate  who  said  : — 

"  I  long  for  the  time  when  we  shall  see  another  Conference,  and 
when  the  menVif  the  Greek  Church  and  the  Roman  Church  shall 
talk  things  over  with  us  in  the  service  of  Christ.  The  Kingdom 
will  not  come  until  every  branch  can  unite  together  in  some  common 
effort  of  service  for  the  Lord  !  " 

And  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  a  Roman  Catholic 
Monsignor  and  Bishop  who,  though  not  a  delegate,  had 
expressed  most  clearly  of  all  his  approval  of  the  basis  on 
which  the  delegates  had  met.  Most  interesting  was  the 
story  told  by  the  Editor  of  the  "  Churchman,"  Silas 
McBee,  whose  speech  has  been  already  mentioned,  of  a 
visit  he  had  paid  to  this  well-known  Italian  dignitary, 
Monsignor  Bonomelli,  Bishop  of  Cremona,  reputed 
to    be    both    a    modernist    and    a   personal   friend   of 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  201 

the  present  Pope.  This  old  man,  nearly  eighty  years  of 
age,  described  by  the  speaker  to  be  "  one  of  the  great 
evangelical  preachers  of  the  world  "  and  "  one  of  the 
greatest  bishops,"  had  written  a  letter  specially  to  be 
read  at  the  Conference.  And  in  this  letter,  when  it  was 
read,  was  recognised  a  document  that  might  almost  have 
been  taken  as  a  charter  of  the  principles  for  which  the 
Conference  and  all  similar  Conferences  stood.  It  is  too 
long  to  quote  here,  but  in  order  that  the  reader  may  not 
be  deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  reading  a  notable 
document,  it  has  been  inserted  as  an  appendix  to  this 
chapter. 

From  all  this  will  be  apparent  the  truth  of  the  obser- 
vation, that  this  Conference  was  remarkable  for  having 
brought  together,  whether  in  person,  or  in  spirit  and 
sympathy,  people  of  very  widely  differing  positions.  It 
was,  in  a  word,  far  more  representative  than  such  Con- 
ferences had  ever  been  in  the  past,  and  therefore  its 
unanimous  adoption  of  the  motion  then  before  the  House, 
became  a  proportionately  more  significant  and  hopeful 
event. 


10. 

'"  Thus  an  important  thing  that  this  Conference,  and, 
especially  this  debate,  made  clear,  was  the  necessity 
of  trying  to  understand,  and  understand  sympathetically, 
what  are  the  principles  for  which  Christians  who  differ 
with  each  other  stand.  These  principles,  it  is  true,  were 
related  to  issues  which  were  not  the  actual  issue  before 
the  Conference  that  day  ;  but  they  lay  behind  that 
issue,  and  the  knowledge  that  they  did  lie  behind  it,  and 
must  at  some  distant  day  be  faced,  was  what  gave  to  the 
debate  its  intensity,  its  moments  of  sometimes  almost 
anxious  intensity.     Nothing  was  more  remarkable  than 


202  EDINBURGH  1910 

the  freedom  with  which  differing  views  were  stated,  and 
it  was  this  freedom  and  this  frankness  that  were  such  a 
hopeful  sign  for  the  future  and  that  made  the  unanimous 
passing  of  the  resolution  so  remarkable  an  event.  It  was 
discovered  that  without  compromising  these  it  would 
still  be  possible  to  co-operate,  and  that  the  principle  on 
which  the  Conference  had  been  based  could  still  be 
adhered  to,  and  proceeded  on.  The  principle  would  hold. 
The  enormous  section  of  Christendom  represented  at 
Edinburgh,  1910,  was  ready  for  a  Continuation  Com- 
mittee. Holding  their  differences  and  respecting  those 
who  differed,  the  men  there  met  in  Conference,  and  others 
like  them,  could  still  continue  to  meet  for  the  interchange 
of  ideas  and  the  devising  of  common  measures.  They 
could  thus  learn  to  understand  each  other  better.  The 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  motion  was  passed  showed 
that  in  passing  it  the  delegates  realised  that  they  were 
going  forward,  that  they  were  making  progress,  in  the 
path  along  which  God  had  evidently  been  leading ; 
realised  too  that  this  was  a  stepping  out  into  something 
which  must  be  supernatural  if  it  was  to  be  anything  at  all. 
The  Report  itself,  in  the  chapter  referred  to,  had 
already  enunciated  these  principles  with  a  truthfulness 
and  a  careful  balance  which  could  hardly  fail  to  command 
universal  assent.  "  Co-operation,"  it  said,  "is  a  moral 
problem  " — the  old  problem  of  sympathy  and  mutual 
respect,  faith,  and  love.  "  We  cannot  too  often  remind 
ourselves 

"  that  no  large  progress  either  in  the  unity  of  the  Church  or  in  co- 
operative effort  can  be  made  with  our  present  spiritual  conception 
and  capacity.  //The  true  path  does  not  lie  in  treating  our  differences 
as  unimportant,  and  impatiently  brushing  them  aside  as  unworthy 
hindrances,  but  in  finding  through  patient  self-discipline  a  higher 
point  of  view  which  transcends  them  and  in  which  they  are  re- 
conciled.    On  the  intellectual  side  this  is  a  task  that  calls  for 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  203 

strength  and  perseverance  ;  and  on  the  moral  side  we  need  the 
power  of  a  mighty  love,  which,  by  the  clearness  of  its  perception 
and  the  flow  of  its  energy,  illuminates  and  transforms  the  situation 
and  makes  all  things  new."/ 

Penitence,  it  said  also,  is  due  for  the  arrogance  and  lack 
of  insight  of  the  past,  and  for  the  very  absence  of  desire 
for  the  cessation  of  the  divisions  of  to-day.  And  prayer 
is  needed,  because  human  wisdom  can  discern  no  one 
remedy  for  the  situation. 

( ["  Unity,  when  it  comes,  must  be  something  richer,  grander,  more 
comprehensive  than  anything  which  we  can  see  at  present.  It  is 
something  into  which  and  up  to  which  we  must  grow,  something 
of  which  and  for  which  we  must  become  worthy.  We  need  to 
have  sufficient  faith  in  God  to  believe  that  He  can  bring  us  to 
something  higher  and  more  Christlike  than  anything  to  which 
at  present  we  see  a  way."/ 

Such  were  the  principles  on  which  both  Edinburgh, 
1910,  and  its  Continuation  were  broad-based.  And  the 
resolution  was  nothing  more  than  a  proposal  to  create 
a  method  of  personal  intercourse,  with  a  view  to  the 
promotion  of  practical  ends  in  that  spiritual  spirit ;  for 
it  is  by  personal  intercourse  that  Christendom  can  be 
drawn  together  far  better  than  by  an  ambitious  project 
of  co-operation  or  church-federation  :  just  as  it  is  not 
identity  of  intellectual  opinions,  or  even  the  pursuit  of 
identical  aims,  that  keeps  families  together  and  the 
family  bond  strong,  "  but  rather  personal  and  intimate 
knowledge  of  one  another,  and  mutual  trust."  And  no 
manner  of  doubt  was  left  but  that  the  Conference 
endorsed  these  sentiments  of  its  Commission's  Report. 
A  well-known  delegate — a  Nonconformist — said,  for 
example — 

"  We  meet  here  a  very  remarkable  body,  and  we  have  had 
speeches  this  morning  from  men  from  whom  many  of  us  have 
been  accustomed  to  be  quite  separate ;  but  I  want  to  thank  the 


204  EDINBURGH  1910 

Bishop  of  Southwark  and  others  who  spoke  for  the  expressions 
they  have  given  of  their  desire  for  unity.  I  thank  them 
especially,  because  it  seems  to  me  that  the  spirit  of  unity  can 
only  be  obtained  in  being  perfectly  frank,  by  making  everybody 
understand  our  position.  I  do  look  forward  now  with  greater 
hopefulness  than  ever  to  a  day  when  we  shall  be  able  to  meet 
to  consider  questions  which  have  been  tabooed  at  this  Confer- 
ence— and  very  properly  tabooed — and  shall  be  able  to  talk 
frankly  to  each  other  about  the  things  on  which  we  differ  as 
well  as  the  things  on  which  we  agree,  recognising  that  we  are 
members  of  the  Body  of  Christ,  and  seeking  the  guidance  of 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  to  lead  us  into  the  larger  and  fuller  truth 
which  comprehends  the  different  opinions.  So  I  rejoice  in  the 
measure  of  agreement  we  have  come  to  to-day." 

And  to  this  utterance  many  parallels  might  be  adduced 
from  the  debate. 


n. 

It  has  now  been  shown  how  the  question  of  Unity 
was  quite  secondary  to  the  practical  question  of  Co- 
operation before  the  House.  Still,  the  Commission  stood, 
in  virtue  of  its  very  title,  for  the  "  Promotion  of  Unity," 
and  therefore  it  was  as  natural  as  it  was  in  the  highest 
sense  useful,  that  many  things  were  said  on  the  remoter 
issue,  which  all  felt  with  more  or  less  keenness  of  con- 
sciousness was  ultimately  involved  by  the  immediate 
proposal.  The  Report  had  already  given  a  most  valuable 
lead  in  regard  to  this  ultimate  problem.  In  the  memor- 
able chapter,  already  quoted  from,  it  had  said  : — 

'  "  While  we  may  differ  from  one  another  in  our  conception 
of  what  unity  involves  and  requires,  we  agree  in  believing  that 
our  Lord  intended  that  we  should  be  one  in  a  visible  fellow- 
ship. .  .  .  The  realisation  of  the  ideal  may  lie  in  the  far 
distance  and  the  difficulties  to  be  surmounted  may  be  over- 
whelmingly great ;  but  it  is  something  to  have  felt  the  stirring 
of  a  hope  so  rich  and  so  wonderful."  / 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  205 

And  it  then  went  on  to  an  analysis,  masterly  in  its 
sympathy  and  truthfulness,  of  the  divergent  conceptions 
entertained  by  Christians  in  this  regard.  It  finds  that 
these  reduce  themselves  to  two  main  types  : — to  that 
of  those  who  see,  in  the  transcending  significance  of  the 
faith  common  to  all,  the  fundamental  and  determining 
fact  in  the  situation,  and  who  therefore  incline  towards 
the  formation  of  some  sort  of  federation  of  Christian  com- 
munions and  the  practising  of  free  intercommunion  :  and 
the  conception  of  those  who  believe  that  this  common 
measure  of  faith  is  wholly  imperfect  because  it  fails  to 
include  essential  parts  of  divine  revelation  or  essential 
means  of  grace,  and  that  to  surrender  these,  or  to  do 
anything  from  which  that  surrender  could  be  inferred, 
would  be  a  culpable  neglect  of  trust.  All  the  denomina- 
tions, according  to  this  view,  are  emphasising  some 
fragment  of  vital  truth,  and  the  full,  rich,  final  unity, 
which  is  all  that  is  worth  aiming  for,  must  include  all 
these  fragments.  The  pursuit  of  this  ideal,  which  may 
be  more  difficult,  protracted,  and  costly  than  the  other, 
appears  to  such  thinkers  safer  and  more  truly  conducive 
to  the  health  of  the  body  than  the  other.  It  will  not 
ignore  or  minimise  differences  in  spite  of  (or  rather 
because  of)  the  fact  that  the  Christian  bodies  on  the 
mission  field  desire  a  satisfactory  Church-union  ;  but 
rather  seek,  by  patient  and  prayerful  thought,  to 
ascertain  the  elements  of  truth  in  them  all,  so  that  they 
may  be  embraced  in  a  higher  unity.  To  the  first  class  of 
thinkers  the  resolution  of  this  day  probably  commended 
itself  as  a  step  towards  a  federation  of  Churches  in  the 
mission  field  (and  at  home)  in  the  comparatively  near 
future.  To  the  second,  as  a  way  of  permanently  securing 
a  most  valuable  common  meeting-ground  whereon  this 
indispensable  personal  contact  and  exchange  of  views 
may  take  place. 


206  EDINBURGH  1910 

And  so  at  the  Edinburgh  Conference  both  these  types 
of  thinkers,  with  their  many  variants,  freely  expressed 
their  thought,  and  though  that  expression  often  revealed 
the  most  radical  differences  on  fundamental  aspects  of 
the  question,  the  sense  of  brotherhood,  instead  of  suffering 
comminution,  seemed  to  increase  and  grow  stronger.  This 
fact  carried  with  it  its  own  encouragement.  It  gave  hope 
of  victory  just  because  it  itself  was  victory.  Thus, 
for  example,  an  Australian  delegate,  on  the  "  extreme 
left,"  utterly  denied  that  "  any  outward  organic  unity  " 
was  necessary  or  practicable  or  even  desirable — it  would 
be  material,  mechanical,  unwieldy,  dangerous,  inorganic, 
non-spiritual,  external.  .  !  .  .  Such  an  ideal  was  the  single 
obstacle  to  progress.  "  One  single  legion,  vast  and 
unwieldy,  may  be  broken  and  torn  by  disunion  within 
itself,"  he  said.  The  very  next  speaker,  a  Congregation- 
alist  like  the  first,  after  telling  of  a  remarkable  church- 
union  movement  in  South  India,  went  on,  "  But  some  of 
us  are  seeking  more  than  that,  and  I  believe  that  federa- 
tion and  co-operation  will  be  valuable  in  proportion 
as  they  have  their  ultimate  end  in  Christian  union, 
in  a  great  united  organisation!"  Again,  Professor 
James  Denney,  in  a  tremendously  powerful  address  that 
very  evening,  found  that  the  Church  was  and  could  only 
be  one  in  this — that  all  its  members  represent  the  same 
attitude  of  the  soul  to  Christ.  Its  basis  of  unity  was  found 
in  the  common  loyalty  of  all  sinful  men  to  Jesus  Christ  as 
their  Lord  and  Saviour,  not  in  any  number  of  carefully 
digested  theological  propositions  or  any  ecclesiastical 
constitution  however  carefully  it  be  framed, — some- 
thing that  has  no  theological,  no  intellectual  embarrass- 
ments about  it  at  all.  It  is  difficult  to  be  sure  whether 
the  Professor  meant  to  negate  the  very  idea  of  corporate 
unity,  or  merely  a  corporate  unity  that  is  based  on  an 
idea  of  Catholicity  to  which  Christians  have  given  very 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  207 

earnest  thought.  One  would  have  liked  to  see  the  matter 
threshed  out  between  him  and  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham 
— another  great  teacher  and  scholar — whose  utterance 
on  this  subject,  quoted  at  the  very  end  of  Chapter  VIII. 
(The  Church  on  the  Mission-Field),  makes  so  curious  a 
contrast  with  the  former's  ;  an  utterance  which,  though 
apparently  meaning  the  precise  converse  of  that  of  the 
Scottish  Professor,  was  delivered  with  equally  passionate 
conviction,  and  with  quite  equal  intellectual  incisiveness  ! 
...  A  final  contrast :  one  well-known  delegate  from 
America  thought  that  all  the  differences  that  divide  the 
denominations  were  so  unutterably  unimportant  that 
they  might  be  made  up  into  a  mere  appendix  to  some 
handbook  of  common  Christian  teaching  ;  and  then, 
"  I  suggest  we  follow  the  example  of  modern  science — 
cut  out  the  appendix  !  "  While  on  the  other  hand, 
speaker  after  speaker,  Anglican  and  non- Anglican,  urged 
the  intense  importance  of  denominational  distinctions, 
because  they  enshrine  fragments  of  truth  which  are 
necessary  to  the  perfect  whole.  .  .  . 

"  We  have  no  use  for  the  Least  Common  Denominator  of  Christi- 
anity. We  look  with  hope  to  its  Greatest  Common  Measure  some 
day,  a  day  not  yet  in  sight.  .  .  .  One  day  we  shall  be  one,  but  it 
will  be  effected  by  a  higher  union  than  is  in  sight  at  present, 
when  our  deepest  convictions  and  needs  are  met  and  satisfied,  not 
whittled  away." 

So  "  the  Lion  in  that  enormous  den  of  Daniels  " — as 
Bishop  Montgomery  feared  he  was.  But  as  far  as  these 
words  went,  he  would  have  probably  found  most  of  the 
Daniels  roaring  in  unison  with  him. — These  samples, 
which  might  easily  be  multiplied  and  varied,  show  clearly 
with  what  freedom  men  were  speaking  their  mind  that 
day. 


208  EDINBURGH  1910 

12. 

And  now,  is  it  fully  understood  both  why  the  debate 
on  this  so  simple  a  resolution  was  attended  by  such  excite- 
ment, and  by  such  moments  of  occasional  tension  ;  and 
why  the  unanimous  carrying  of  that  resolution  called 
forth  such  an  outburst  of  emotion  ?  All  the  livelong 
morning  and  afternoon  the  discords  had  been  suffered 
freely  to  rush  in,  and  they  made  the  fuller,  the  sweeter, 
and  above  all  the  more  significant,  the  harmony  that 
issued  now  in  the  unanimous  vote  which  crowned  the 
debate.  That  was  not,  indeed,  nor  was  it  even  imagined 
to  be,  a  final  cadence,  a  full  close  :  but  it  was  like  some 
partial  cadence  in  a  complicated  fugue  ;  a  cadence  which, 
though  reached  with  effort  and  dwelt  upon  with  delight, 
forms  but  a  new  starting-point,  from  which  to  weave  a 
fresh  web  of  the  harmonies  and  dissonances  that  run  out, 
at  last,  into  the  full  close  of  the  great  Common  Chord. 


13- 

The  Chairman  rose.  Was  the  Conference  ready  to 
vote  on  the  Resolution  ?  A  murmur  of  assent,  not  loud, 
but  deep — voluminous.  A  delegate  rose.  The  Chairman 
leaned  swiftly  to  him.  ...  "  Dr  Wallace  Williamson 
has  the  floor  !  " — Dr  Wallace  Williamson,  speaking  from 
his  place  in  the  House,  merely  wished  to  call  the  attention 
of  the  Committee  to  the  necessity  of  providing  for  the 
continuance  of  the  Continuation  Committee.  .  .  .  Dr 
Robson  explained  that  the  point  had  not  been  over- 
looked. .  .  .  Bishop  Roots  thought  that  one  or  two 
verbal  matters  might  be  left  in  the  hands  of  the  Business 
Committee.  The  Chairman  : — "  Yes,  matters  which  are 
merely  verbal  and  general,  involving  no  change  of 
substance,  may  be  entrusted  to  the  Committee.' '  .  .  .  The 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  209 

brief  sentences  were  interchanged  in  a  weird  silence  that 
made  their  formality  sound  unnatural — as  unnatural  as 
the  starter's  formal  directions  sound  to  the  runners 
in  some  momentous  race,  when,  toeing  the  line  and 
breathing  deep,  they  listen  for  the  pistol,  motionless 
as  marble,  yet  incarnating  the  very  idea  of  motion. 

Then  after  a  pause  :  "  Shall  the  vote  be  now  taken  ?  " 
Again  the  same  murmur,  charged  with  the  emotional 
intensity  of  expectation  that  has  reached  its  climax.  The 
Chairman  turns  to  Sir  Andrew  Fraser,  the  mover  of  the 
motion.  He  has  the  right  to  close  the  discussion.  Sir 
Andrew  Fraser  evidently  feels  that  at  that  moment  no 
mortal  being  could  have  said  anything  more  without 
discomfiture,  besides  ruining  a  God-prepared  climax. 
Sir  Andrew  Fraser  signifies  that   he  waives   his  right. 

Then — 

"  The  Motion  has  been  moved  and  seconded :  those  in 
favour  of  it  say  Aye  !  " 

A  roar  :  "  Aye  f  "  short  as  the  monosyllable  itself, 
but  with  a  volume  like  a  Handel  chorus. 

"  Contrary,  No  !  " 

A  silence,  as  voluminous  as  the  former  sound. 

"  The  motion  is  carried  unanimously." 


14- 

Has  this  chapter  interpreted  truly  the  reason  of  the 
strong  emotion  with  which  all  now  vented  their  pent-up 
feelings,  spontaneously  bursting  into  the  glorifying  of 
God? 

"  Praise  GOD  from  whom  all  blessings  flow, 
Praise  Him  all  creatures  here  below, 
Praise  Him  above  ye  heavenly  host, 
Praise  Father   Son   and  Holy  Ghost  ! " 
o 


210  EDINBURGH  1910 


APPENDICES  TO  CHAPTER  XII. 

(i) 

Message  to  the  Edinburgh  Conference  from  Monsignor 
Bonomelli,  Roman  Catholic  Bishop  of  Cremona. 

A  Conference  of  representatives  of  all  the  Christian  denomi- 
nations, held  with  the  noble  aim  of  better  making  known 
Christ  and  His  Church  to  consciences  which  feel  and  exhibit 
in  practice  all  the  profound  and  fecund  beauty  of  religious 
aspirations,  is  a  fact  of  such  importance  and  significance  that 
it  cannot  escape  the  attention  of  any  one  who  may  follow  the 
Conference,  however  superficially,  in  what  a  degree  the  most 
profound  problems  are  agitating  and  revolutionising  the  modern 
spirit.  This  Conference,  indeed,  proves  that  religious  feeling 
ever  exercises  a  supreme  influence  over  the  entire  life  of  man, 
and  that  the  religious  factor  in  our  day,  as  throughout  all  time, 
stimulates  and  urges  on  human  activity  towards  new  conquests 
in  the  path  of  civilisation.  The  progress  of  science,  the  various 
phases  of  philosophy,  the  evolution  both  of  thought  and  of 
practical  life, — these  all  group  themselves  round  the  religions 
which  human  history  displays  and  classifies  at  different  epochs. 
It  has  been  well  said  that  as  the  prism  exhibits  the  various 
colours  contained  in  light,  so  mankind  displays  the  various 
forms  and  shades  of  religion. 

Moreover,  your  Conference,  which  is  being  held  in  Scotland, 
the  land  of  strong  and  noble  ideals,  though  at  one  time  torn 
asunder  by  religious  strife,  is  a  triumphant  proof  of  another 
consoling  fact ; — the  most  desirable  and  precious  of  human 
liberties,  religious  liberty,  may  now  be  said  to  be  a  grand  con- 
quest of  contemporary  humanity,  and  it  enables  men  of  various 
faiths  to  meet  together,  not  for  the  purpose  of  hating  and  com- 
bating each  other,  for  the  supposed  greater  glory  of  God,  but 
in  order  to  consecrate  themselves  in  Christian  love  to  the 
pursuit  of  that  religious  truth  which  unites  all  believers  in 
Christ.  United  in  one  faith,  the  various  spiritual  forces  com- 
bine in  the  adoration  of  the  one  true  God  in  spirit  and  in 
truth. 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  211 

For  these  reasons  I  applaud  your  Conference.  I  know  very 
well  that  some  sceptical  spirits,  saturated  in  gross  materialism 
or  cold  positivism,  may  smile  at  your  initiative,  and  tax  you 
with  Utopian  optimism,  or  with  being  well-meaning  dreamers, 
shutting  your  eyes  to  the  realities  of  life.  Such  will  not  fail  to 
say  that  you,  being  yourselves  profoundly  divided  in  your 
religious  beliefs,  of  which  you  endeavour  to  be  the  jealous 
guardians,  cannot  have  any  data  or  principles,  accepted  by  all, 
on  which  to  base  your  discussions.  Besides,  religion  is  too 
much  a  matter  of  individual  conviction  and  feeling  for  us  to 
hope  ever  to  see  one  only  Church,  capable  of  embracing  all 
believers  in  Christ.  But  no,  only  a  superficial  observer  could 
be  deluded  regarding  the  practicability  of  such  efforts.  Yours, 
gentlemen,  is  not  an  optimistic  idealism,  nor  an  ideal  dream. 
The  elements  of  fact  in  which  you  all  agree  are  numerous  and 
are  common  to  the  various  Christian  denominations,  and  they 
can  therefore  serve  as  a  point  of  departure  for  your  discussions. 
It  is,  therefore,  legitimate  to  aspire  to  a  unity  of  faith  and  of 
religious  practice,  and  to  work  for  its  realisation  by  the  conse- 
cration of  all  energies  of  mind  and  heart.  This  is  a  work  in 
which  we  in  our  day  may  well  co-operate.  In  this  field,  as  in 
others,  it  is  well  to  keep  in  mind  that  from  the  clash  of  opinions 
discussed  in  a  free  and  calm  spirit  sparks  of  truth  cannot  fail 
to  be  elicited. 

Now,  on  what  matters  and  on  what  principles  are  you  agreed, 
gentlemen  ?  To  my  thinking  they  are  as  follows.  Like  myself, 
all  of  you  are  persuaded  that  the  physical,  ethical,  and  social 
developments  of  life  do  not  satisfy  man,  because  man,  whether 
he  wills  it  or  not,  is  oppressed  by  the  Infinite,  and  this  con- 
sciousness, from  which  he  cannot  deliver  himself,  urges  him  to 
harmonise  his  physical  and  social  conditions  with  the  supreme 
Reality,  which  is  God,  the  Source  of  all  these  conditions,  and 
to  which  they  are  subordinate.  Without  such  harmony  the 
ethical  and  social  life  loses  its  significance  and  impresses  us 
with  its  insufficiency.  Faith,  therefore,  in  God  the  Creator, 
which  bestows  on  human  life  an  eternal  and  absolute  value,  is 
for  you  the  primary  point  of  agreement.  You  all  share  faith 
in  Christ  the  Redeemer.  "  Christ  reveals  Himself  and  is 
adored  as  divine ;  this  is  a  religious  fact  of  unequalled  import- 
ance.    Jesus    has  in  reality  not  vanished    either  from  history 


212  EDINBURGH  1910 

or  from  the  life  of  Christianity  ;  He  lives  at  all  times  in  millions 
of  souls ;  He  is  enthroned  as  King  in  all  hearts.  The  figure 
of  Christ  has  not  the  cold  splendour  of  a  distant  star,  but  the 
warmth  of  a  heart  which  is  near  us,  a  flame  burning  in  the  soul 
of  believers  and  keeping  alive  their  consciences.  Putting  aside 
certain  opinions,  which,  honoured  at  the  moment,  may  possibly 
be  abandoned  to-morrow,  criticism  had  hoped  to  effect  a 
complete  demolition  of  the  conception  of  Christ,  but  what 
criticism  really  demolished  was  merely  irrelevant  matter.  .  .  ." 
The  figure  of  Christ,  after  all  the  onslaughts  of  criticism,  now 
stands  forth  more  pure  and  divine  than  ever,  and  compels  our 
adoration. 

Thus  we  are  united  in  the  profound  conviction  that  a 
universal  religion  is  necessary,  and  that  this  must  be  the 
Christian  religion ;  not  a  cold  and  formal  religion,  a  thing  apart 
from  human  life,  but  a  living  force,  pervading  the  human  soul 
in  its  essence,  and  its  various  manifestations — a  religion,  in 
short,  which  completes  and  crowns  our  life  and  which  bears 
fruition  in  works  of  love  and  holiness.  Again,  all  of  you  feel 
the  need  of  a  Church  which  may  be  the  outward  manifestation 
of  your  faith  and  religious  feeling,  the  vigilant  custodian  now 
and  here  of  Christian  doctrine  and  tradition.  It  sustains  and 
keeps  alive  religious  and  individual  activity  in  virtue  of  that 
strong  power  of  suggestion  which  collectively  always  exercises 
on  the  individual.  "  Sir,"  exclaims  Johnson,  "  it  is  a  very 
dangerous  thing  for  a  man  not  to  belong  to  any  Church  ! " 
And  this  is  true.  How  many  of  us  would  fall  a  thousand  times 
were  it  not  for  its  support ! 

Finally,  from  the  various  Churches  and  religious  denomina- 
tions into  which  you  Christians  are  divided  there  arises  a  new 
unifying  element,  a  noble  aspiration,  restraining  too  great 
impulsiveness,  levelling  dividing  barriers,  and  working  for  the 
realisation  of  the  one  Holy  Church  though  all  the  children  of 
redemption.  And  now,  I  ask,  Are  not  these  elements  more 
than  sufficient  to  constitute  a  common  ground  of  agreement, 
and  to  afford  a  sound  basis  for  further  discussion,  tending  to 
promote  the  union  of  all  believers  in  Christ  ?  On  this 
common  ground,  gentlemen,  having  your  minds  liberated  from 
all  passions  or  sectarian  intolerance,  animated,  on  the  contrary, 
by  Christian  charity,  bring  together  into  one  focus  the  results 


THE  PROMOTION  OF  UNITY  213 

of  your  studies,  the  teachings  of  experience,  whether  individual 
or  collective,  calmly  carry  on  research,  and  promote  discussion. 
May  truth  be  as  a  shining  light,  illuminating  your  consciences, 
and  making  you  all  of  one  heart  and  one  mind.  My  desire  for 
you  is  but  the  echo  of  Christ's  words,  which  have  resounded 
through  the  centuries — "  Let  there  be  one  flock  and  one 
Shepherd." 


(*) 

[The  writer  ventures  to  add  to  the  former  appendix  another  one, 
containing  a  few  passages  from  a  recent  book,  by  one  who  probably 
does  not  "  feel  justified  in  calling  himself  a  Christian  in  any  sense 
of  the  term."  They  are  an  interesting  comment  on  Chapter  XII., 
for  they  show  how  the  divisions  of  Christendom  sometimes  strike 
the  world  ;  and  they  reveal  the  sort  of  reflections  which  a  dis- 
cussion such  as  that  just  related  would  probably  suggest  to  this 
sort  of  thinker. 

The  whole  meaning  of  the  author  has  no  doubt  not  been  fully 
conveyed  by  this  selection,  which  is  somewhat  arbitrary.  To  the 
author  Catholicity  means  of  course  something  that  quite  tran- 
scends Christianity.  But  we  are  only  concerned  here  with  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  under  this  aspect  the  selection  might  be  said  fairly 
to  convey  the  author's  thought.] 

"  The  idea  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  charged  with  synthetic  sug- 
gestion ■  it  is  in  many  ways  an  idea  broader  and  finer  than  the 
constructive  idea  of  any  existing  state.  .  .  . 

"  I  write  here  of  the  Catholic  Church  as  an  idea.  To  come  from 
that  idea  to  the  world  of  present  realities  is  to  come  to  a  tangle  of 
difficulties.  Is  the  Catholic  Church  merely  the  Roman  Communion, 
or  does  it  include  the  Greek  and  Protestant  Churches  ?  Some  of 
these  bodies  are  declaredly  dissentient,  some  claim  to  be  integral 
portions  of  the  Catholic  Church  which  have  protested  against  and 
abandoned  certain  errors  of  the  central  organisation.  .  .  . 

"  Many  people,  I  know,  take  refuge  from  the  struggle  with  this 
tangle  of  controversies  by  refusing  to  recognise  any  institutions 
whatever  as  representing  the  Church.  They  assume  a  mystical 
Church,  made  up  of  all  true  believers,  of  all  men  and  women  of 
good  intent,  whatever  their  formulae  or  connexion.    Wherever  there 


214,  EDINBURGH  1910 

is  worship,  there,  they  say,  is  a  fragment  of  the  Church.  All  and 
none  of  these  bodies  are  the  true  Church. 

"  This  is  no  doubt  profoundly  true.  It  gives  something  like  a 
working  assumption  for  the  needs  of  the  present  time.  People 
can  get  along  upon  that.  But  it  does  not  exhaust  the  question. 
We  seek  a  real  and  understanding  synthesis.  We  want  a  real 
collectivism,  not  a  poetical  idea — a  means  whereby  men  and 
women  of  all  sorts,  all  kinds  of  humanity,  may  pray  together,  sing 
together,  stand  side  by  side,  feel  the  same  wave  of  emotion,  develop 
a  collective  being.  Doubtless  right-spirited  men  are  praying  now 
at  a  thousand  discrepant  altars.  But  for  the  most  part  those  who 
pray  imagine  those  others  who  do  not  pray  beside  them  are  in 
error,  they  do  not  know  their  common  brotherhood  and  salvation. 
Their  brotherhood  is  marked  by  analysable  differences  ;  theirs 
is  a  dispersed  collectivism  ;  their  churches  are  only  a  little  more 
extensive  than  their  individualities  and  intenser  in  their  collective 
separation.  ... 

"  There  was  an  attempt  at  a  Reformation  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  through  a  variety  of  causes  it  failed.  It  detached  great 
masses  from  the  Catholic  Church,  and  left  that  organisation 
impoverished  intellectually  and  spiritually  ;  but  it  achieved  no 
reconstruction  at  all.  It  achieved  no  reconstruction  because  the 
movement  as  a  whole,  lacked  an  adequate  grasp  of  one  funda- 
mentally necessary  idea,  the  idea  of  Catholicity.  It  fell  into 
particularism  and  failed.  It  set  up  a  vast  process  of  fragmenta- 
tion among  Christian  associations.  It  drove  huge  fissures  through 
the  once  common  platform.  .  .  . 

"  The  Reformation,  the  reconstruction  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
lies  still  before  us.  It  is  a  necessary  work.  It  is  a  work  strictly 
parallel  to  the  reformation  and  expansion  of  the  organised  state. 
Together,  these  processes  constitute  the  general  duty  before 
mankind." 

From  «  First  and  Last  Things,"  by  H.  G.  Wells. 
(Bk.  iii.  §  13— "  The  Idea  of  the  Church.") 


CHAPTER  XIII 


THE   PREPARATION   OF   MISSIONARIES 

Six  of  the  eight  full  days  of  Conference  had  now  passed. 
Were  an  attempt  to  be  made  to  sum  up  their  collective 
message  thus  far,  it  would  surely  be  : — If  this  be  the 
task  before  the  Church  ;  if  the  evangelisation  of  all  the 
world,  the  Christianising  of  the  nations  by  a  gospel  pre- 
sented in  its  fulness  and  its  universality,  by  an  education 
as  profound  as  spirit  and  as  wide  as  life,  through 
daughter-churches  raised  to  the  measure  of  the  stature 
of  the  fulness  of  Christ  : — if  this  be  the  task  before  the 
Church,  then  what  manner  of  men  must  they  be  who  are 
sent  to  set  their  hands  to  it,  and  what  manner  of  Church 
must  that  be  which  sends  them  ! 

The  men  Sent — the  Church  that  Sends.  And  so  the 
two  remaining  days  were  now  to  be  given  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  Reports  of  the  two  remaining  Com- 
missions on  "  The  Preparation  of  Missionaries,"  and 
"  The  Home  Base." 

And  so,  too,  the  sequence  of  thought  from  the  delibera- 
tions of  the  previous  day  was  carried  on.  For  the 
Training  of  Missionaries  at  the  Home  Base  was  to  supply 
one  of  the  most  obvious  applications  of  the  need  and 
possibility  of  co-operation,  for  which  the  momentous 
resolution  of  yesterday  had  so  signally  prepared  the 
way. 


216  EDINBURGH  1910 

i. 

With  very  great  expectancy  was  the  discussion  of  the 
Report  on  the  Training  of  Missionaries  approached 
on  this  last  day  but  one,  and  most  of  all  by  the  missionary 
members  of  the  Conference,  who  felt  an  acutely  personal 
interest  in  the  subject.  Moreover,  the  Report  to  be 
discussed  was  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  valuable  of  the 
series.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  had  this  all-important 
subject  received  a  really  adequate  attention  :  since  now, 
for  the  first  time,  it  had  been  considered  by  the  collective 
intelligence  of  Reformed  Christendom.  Surely  this  day 
would  leave  it  beyond  all  doubt  that  changes  of  far-reach- 
ing character  were  going  immediately  to  be  made  in  the 
ideals  and  the  methods  of  missionary  training  ! 

This  high  hope  did  indeed  become  one  of  the  most 
settled  and  definite  convictions  left  by  the  Edinburgh 
Conference,  though  perhaps  it  is  not  unfair  to  say  that 
it  was  not  so  much  to  this  day's  discussion  that  that 
conviction  was  owed.  It  was  owed  to  the  Conference 
itself,  taken  as  a  whole,  and  to  the  Report  of  this  Com- 
mission. The  discussion  itself,  though  good  things  were 
said  during  its  course,  was  at  a  disadvantage.  For  one 
thing,  it  was  humanly  inevitable  that  there  should  be 
some  reaction  after  the  strong  tension  and  excitement  of 
yesterday.  Then,  possibly,  the  subject  did  not  lend  itself 
so  well  to  discussion  as  some  of  the  others.  The  Report 
had  summed  up  all  that  was  to  be  said  on  the  present 
state  of  things,  and  on  the  broad  principles  of  missionary 
training.  What  most  people  wished  to  hear  discussed 
Was  what  was  immediately  to  be  done  to  carry  out  those 
principles.  Yet  here,  of  course,  the  Conference  worked 
Under  a  radical  limitation — no  one  of  its  members  was 
empowered  to  make  any  authoritative  proposal,  or  pro- 
posals, which  might  have  served  as  the  basis  of  a  practical 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  217 

discussion.  The  Conference  had  no  executive  power, 
and  the  very  men  who  were  most  concerned  with  this 
question  at  the  Home  Base — secretaries  of  societies, 
heads  of  mission  colleges,  chairmen  of  candidates'  boards, 
and  the  like — probably  felt  they  had  no  right  to  dwell 
on  the  particular  defects  of  the  institutions  they  re- 
presented, and  no  authority  to  commit,  or  seem  to 
commit,  those  institutions  to  any  scheme  of  reform. 

Nevertheless,  if  one  conviction  more  than  another  was 
left  in  the  minds  of  the  delegates  to  Edinburgh,  1910, 
it  was  that  a  profound  reform  of  missionary  training  was 
about  to  take  place  ;  and  that  this  Report  had  made 
co-operation  in  effecting  that  reform  possible.  For  now 
the  Churches  and  Societies  had  in  their  hands  a  document 
to  which  they  had  already  assented,  because  it  was 
virtually  written  by  themselves  ;  a  document  which 
possessed  the  moral  authority  to  command  consent  and 
compel  action,  and  gave  a  definite  aim  and  a  definite 
ideal  to  be  worked  out  everywhere  and  by  all. 


The  Report  was  indeed  a  masterly  document,  a  con- 
tribution of  the  first  order  to  the  philosophy  and  art  of 
training,  not  only  of  missionary  workers  but  even  of 
workers  generally.  Its  Committee  represented  the 
highest  talent  and  the  best  experience  to  be  found  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic ;  its  correspondents  were  the  men 
and  women  engaged  in  the  task,  responsible  secretaries 
of  Boards,  and  experienced  workers  in  the  field ;  and  the 
time  and  labour  which  one  and  all  had  given  to  their 
task  were  lavish.  Need  more  be  said  to  prove  the  moral 
authoritativeness  of  this  document,  the  study  of  which 
would  have  been  bound  to  influence  the  whole  Church, 


218  EDINBURGH  1910 

even  had  the  Edinburgh  Conference  never  met  ?  The 
whole  Church,  be  it  said  ;  for  if  the  Report  will  help 
the  missionary  Societies  to  make  the  reforms  of  which 
they  have  long  felt  the  need,  it  will  also  be  to  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  Church  a  revelation  of  the  existence  of  the 
problem,  and  the  meaning  of  missionary  training  itself. 
Nay,  it  will  do  more  :  it  will  convince  complacent  critics 
that  they  have  part  and  lot  in  this  matter  ;  it  will  drive 
all  to  recognise  that  the  problem  of  the  men  Sent  is  the 
problem  of  the  Church  that  Sends. 

A  glance  at  the  contents  of  the  Report  is  enough  to 
reveal  the  reality  and  the  extent  of  the  problem.  The 
subject  of  missionary  training  is  first  connected  with 
the  situation  on  the  mission  field  to-day,  which  the 
reader  of  this  book  also  has  been  considering  in  several 
great  aspects.  Thus  the  Report  is  linked  on  to  four  of  the 
other  seven.  There  is  then  given  an  exhaustive  account, 
analysis  and  classification,  of  the  agencies  which  to-day 
select  and  prepare  missionary  candidates — Boards, 
institutions,  general  theological  and  special  missionary 
colleges — pointing  out  their  merits,  but  showing  their 
deficiencies  in  relation  to  the  task  as  revealed  in  the  first 
chapter.  It  then  considers  the  fundamental  principles 
of  preparation  for  missionary  work,  and  their  application 
to  the  training  of  ordained,  lay,  medical,  and  women 
missionaries.  And  then  it  passes  to  consider  the  special 
preparation  needed  to  equip  the  missionary,  of  which 
language-study  is  the  most  outstanding  aspect.  It  con- 
cludes with  practical  findings  or  proposals,  and  with  a 
final  word  to  the  Church. 


No  address  at  the  presentation  of  the  eight  Reports 
made  a  deeper  impression  on  the  Conference  than  that 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  219 

now  delivered  by  the  Chairman  of  this  Commission, 
Prof.  Douglas  Mackenzie.  As  he  stood  to  present  the 
Report,  one  knew  instinctively  that  the  fine  presence  of 
the  tall  soldierly  figure  was  just  the  counterpart  of  a 
finely-tempered  mind,  a  commanding  intellect.  The 
son  of  a  missionary  statesman,  the  alumnus  of  a  great 
Scottish  University,  successively  professor  and  principal 
of  leading  colleges  in  the  New  World,  he  spoke  with  the 
authority  of  absolute  competence,  and  the  earnestness, 
nay,  the  passion,  of  a  man  who  felt  that  he  had  a  most 
serious  message  to  deliver.  His  consciousness  of  the 
defects  of  the  present  system,  and  the  relative  failures 
reported  to  the  Commission  from  the  mission  field  as  its 
direct  result,  was  clearly  heavy  upon  him  ;  never  before 
had  the  Conference  listened  to  quite  such  plain  speaking. 
Faithful  were  the  wounds  of  this  friend. 

Yet  he  opened  with  a  note  of  lofty  ambition,  and 
through  all  was  an  undertone  of  strongest  hope.  Nothing, 
he  insisted,  would  draw  the  Church's  best  to  give  itself 
to  the  world-wide  work  of  the  Gospel  so  much  as  the 
conviction  that  that  work  calls  for  the  Church's  best. 
And  nothing  would  create  this  conviction  so  much  as  the 
knowledge  that  missionary  training  is  worthy  of  so  great 
a  work.  Educators  would  read  this  Report,  many  of 
them  men  out  of  sympathy  with  mission  work;  but 
sympathy  for  that  work  would  come  with  the  conviction 
that  the  Church  is  taking  it  seriously  enough  to  lavish 
on  it  the  pains  of  a  commensurate  preparation. 
"  Students  in  our  Universities,"  he  cried,  "are  ready  to 
be  kindled  into  enthusiasm,  if  only  we  can  make  the 
avenue  of  the  mission-field  seem  as  large  and  as  worthy  as 
the  avenue  of  any  of  the  great  professions  of  the  world." 
(That  it  is  indeed  so  this  Edinburgh  Conference  had  surely 
proved  up  to  the  hilt.)  In  a  word,  there  are  thought- 
ful and  intelligent  men  all  over  these  countries  of  the 


220  EDINBURGH  1910 

West  who  are  prepared  to  become  increasingly  in- 
terested in  the  modern  forward  movement — when  they 
see  that  it  is  conducted  in  a  way  that  compels  respect. 
Not  only  so,  there  are  thoughtful  and  intelligent  men  in 
the  non-Christian  world  itself  who  will  judge  by  this 
Report,  and  by  the  Church's  action,  of  the  value  which 
Christendom  sets  on  them,  and  on  the  enterprise  of  bring- 
ing to  their  nations  the  message  of  Christianity.  Business 
men  too,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  men  who  judge  of 
causes  by  those  who  plan  and  execute  them  and  by  the 
efficacy  of  the  methods  they  employ,  these  men  will 
allow  their  interest  to  be  captured  for  missions,  when 
they  see  that  the  Church  has  realised  that  even  new  efforts, 
resulting  in  whatever  reinforcements  of  men  and  money, 
must  be  fruitless  unless  those  men  are  trained  to  do 
also  a  new  work.  These  were  the  high  ambitions  with 
which  this  Commission  sent  forth  its  Report,  jealous  for 
the  glory  of  Christ  and  His  world-wide  cause. 

And  even  if  no  effort  resulting  in  large  reinforcements 
of  men  and  money  is  made,  the  quality  of  the  few  who 
may  go  will  triumph  over  the  absence  of  money, 
and  neutralise  many  other  obstacles  and  drawbacks. 
The  whole  matter  on  the  human  side  of  it,  he  said, 
hinges  on  the  quality  of  the  missionary,  and  therefore 
becomes  a  supreme  question  for  this  Conference. 

Dr  Mackenzie  found  that  the  knowledge  which  the 
missionary  requires  might  be  compressed  into  two  clauses 
— the  knowledge  of  Christianity,  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
country  to  which  he  brings  Christianity.  They  do  not 
take  long  to  repeat,  these  two  small  clauses ;  but  in  their 
relation  to  each  other  how  complex  becomes  their 
demand!  The  foregoing  chapters  have  surely  been  a 
sufficient  commentary  upon  this  statement.  Men  who  all 
their  lives  long  have  to  teach,  what  a  knowledge  of  the 
science  and  art  of  teaching  should  they  have  !     Men  who 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  221 

have  to  preach  the  gospel  to  minds  to  which  its  initial 
presuppositions  are  completely  strange,  what  a  know- 
ledge should  they  have  of  those  minds,  with  their  in- 
terests, their  traditions,  their  beliefs  and  their  whole 
ethos  !  And,  similarly,  what  a  knowledge  should  they 
have  of  the  religion  of  Christ,  in  all  its  universality  and 
spirituality !  It  is  unnecessary  to  labour  the  matter. 
It  is  tremendously  clear  when  one  is  brought  full  up  to  it ; 
but  the  things  involved  by  it  only  become  clear  when 
one  thinks  it  through, — just  as  it  is  only  to  the  eyes  which 
gaze  stedfastly  and  closely  at  some  shelly  beach  that 
there  dawns,  very  gradually,  the  revelation  of  the 
wonderful  varieties  crowded  together  there. 

What,  then,  of  our  existing  system  and  the  results  it 
has  produced  ?  It  was  now  that  the  speaker's  tone 
became  so  very  grave.  He  made  every  safeguard 
against  exaggeration,  or  any  foolish  ignoring  of  the  great 
men  that  have  worked  and  are  working  in  the  mission 
field,  or  of  theresults  of  these  men's  work.  Full  admissions 
were  made  as  to  the  value  of  the  training  that  had  helped 
to  make  these  men  what  they  were  and  are.  Yet  it 
was  from  the  mission  field  itself,  from  these  men  them- 
selves, and  from  those  who  have  most  to  do  with  mis- 
sionary preparation  at  home,  that  the  severest  criticisms, 
the  bitterest  complaints  had  come  !  There  was  no 
deliberate  neglect  on  the  part  of  the  home  societies  ; 
just  as  there  was  no  deliberate  neglect  on  the  part  of  the 
missionary,  who  found  himself  shrinking  from  the  really 
difficult  tasks  on  the  field  itself,  because  he  felt  within 
himself  he  was  incompetent  to  face  them  :  incompetent 
to  stand  up  to  this  Mohammedan  Sheikh,  and  that 
Brahmin  pundit  !  .  .  .  No,  there  was  no  deliberate 
neglect,  and  it  was  not  his  fault,  or  anybody's  fault  in 
particular.  The  blame  must  be  shared  all  round,  and  a 
united  effort  made  to  make  the  training  of  missionaries 


222  EDINBURGH  1910 

worthy  of  their  work, — and  not  the  training  of  mis- 
sionaries only,  but  of  all  workers  in  God's  work,  for  it  is 
certain  that  the  standard  of  missionary  training  can  never 
rise  higher  than  that  of  the  training,  which  the  Church 
gives  to  all  the  candidates  for  all  her  ministries.  The 
Church  will  get  the  workers  she  desires  and  the  workers 
she  deserves.  In  the  last  analysis,  the  state  of  missionary 
training  is  the  state  of  the  ambitions,  of  the  ideals,  and  of 
the  life  of  the  Church,  of  all  Christians  at  home ! 

Such  was  the  chairman's  summing  up — or  this  hearer's 
impression  of  his  summing  up — of  the  Report.  The  reader 
who  began  this  chapter  thinking  that  here  at  any  rate 
was  a  subject  that  concerns  the  expert  and  the  specialist, 
may  be  already  convinced  that  it  is  a  subject  of  the 
deepest  general  interest.  He  certainly  would  have  been 
so  convinced  had  he  heard  Douglas  Mackenzie's  pre- 
sentation of  the  Report. 


In  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  an  attempt  will  be 
made  briefly  to  illustrate  these  principal  aspects  of  a 
great  subject. 

And  at  the  very  outset  let  an  important  objection,  or 
rather  apprehension,  be  squarely  faced  and  met.  Is 
there  not  a  danger  of  exaggeration  in  all  this  ?  of  swing- 
ing over  into  a  disastrous  extreme  ?  of  deifying  intel- 
lectual ability  to  the  detriment  of  spiritual  capacity  ? 
of  contemning  the  commonplace  missionary,  and  putting 
altogether  too  high  a  premium  upon  cleverness  ?  in  fact, 
of  over-elaborating  and  overdoing  this  whole  business  of 
preparation  and  equipment  ? 

These  considerations,  though  they  were  not  urged  as 
objections  or  even  as  deep  apprehensions,  were  given  a  very 
large  place  in  the  discussion.     The  Candidates'  Secretary 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  223 

of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  for  example,  while 
admitting  to  the  full  the  need  of  reform,  urged  that  there 
was  a  danger  of  missing  much  valuable  material  if  we 
think  too  exclusively  of  leaders,  not  to  say  the  danger 
to  the  morals  of  young  men  who  might  think  to  become 
leaders  when  they  should  still  be  followers.  Once,  as 
another  reminded  the  Conference,  God  chose  out  of  all 
the  "  candidates  "  a  man  whom  Samuel  would  have 
passed  over,  and  made  of  that  man  a  Leader.  And  like 
those  who  assert  that  Wellington  would  to-day  infallibly 
be  refused  a  commission,  so  Walter  B.  Sloan  of  the 
China  Inland  Mission  told  of  some  mighty  men  of  valour 
in  China  who  would  infallibly  (he  believed)  have  been 
refused  by  some  Candidates'  Committees.  (But  the 
speaker  soon  showed  that  the  China  Inland  Mission  spend 
a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  training  their  man  when  they 
have  selected  him.)  Various  delegates  expressed  their 
conviction  that  the  principal  need  is  for  men  of  the  Bible, 
men  of  love,  men  of  a  Christlike  nature.  .  .  .  Most 
effectively  of  all,  the  apostolic  figure  of  Bishop  Ridley, 
missionary  and  bishop  of  the  Indians  in  North-West 
Canada,  urged  with  all  the  authority  of  a  first-rate  and 
first-hand  experience  that  sympathy  is  the  one  thing  of 
paramount  importance  ;  the  mission  field  needed  a 
Bishop  French,  but,  what  of  a  Rowland  Bateman,  who, 
by  the  sheer  force  of  sympathy  and  the  human  and  divine 
love  for  men,  became  the  prince  of  evangelistic  mis- 
sionaries in  the  Punjab  ? 

Thus  powerfully  did  these  speakers  enforce  once  more 
the  plea  of  the  Conference's  friar-missionary,  Brother 
Western,  a  few  days  before,  for  the  commonplace 
missionary. 

It  was  made  amply  evident,  therefore,  that  this  plea 
for  the  commonplace  missionary  had  been  fully  taken  into 
account  by  those  who  nevertheless  desiderated  a  far  better 


2%  EDINBURGH  1910 

training  for  missionaries.  The  Superior  of  Mirfield,  for 
example,  said  that  the  main  requirement  in  the  mission 
field  can  be  expressed  in  one  syllable,  "  Saints"  :  and  then 
showed  how  deeply  true  it  is  that  spirituality  itself,  like 
every  other  thing  that  lives  and  grows,  needs  training ; 
needs  teachers,  too,  who  know  the  laws  of  that  training. 
Miss  Ruth  Rouse  of  the  Student  Christian  Movement 
among  women — and  here  let  it  be  said,  the  women  dele- 
gates though  so  late  in  coming  to  the  front  now  made  up 
for  it  by  the  uniform  high  quality  of  their  addresses — 
showed  strongly  the  need  for  specialised  training  in  certain 
cases,  and  better  training  in  all  cases :  and  then  went  on  to 
show  how  real  the  demand  is  for  the  all-round  training  of 
the  soul,  so  that  men  and  women  might  go  forth  with  a 
whole,  developed  human  capacity,  and  meet  at  every 
point  the  souls  of  those  to  whom  they  go.  Such  an 
ideal,  of  course,  includes  character  and  spirituality  just 
as  much  as  it  includes  a  developed  intellect.  Similarly, 
and  perhaps  most  strikingly  of  all,  Fr.  Kelly  of  Kelham, 
one  of  the  most  daring  and  original  of  workers  in  the 
sphere  of  clergy-training,  gave  a  yet  deeper  application 
of  this  Christian-platonist  doctrine.  He  spoke  of  the 
difficulty  of  training  itself,  in  the  absolute :  the  difficulty 
of  teaching  anybody  anything.  The  teacher  must  be,  first 
of  all,  a  man  who  is  a  seer  of  the  thing  he  teaches.  Then 
he  must  know  how  to  make,  or  leave,  his  disciples  to  see 
that  thing  for  themselves.  And,  thirdly,  Christian  "know- 
ledge/' a  tremendously  simple  thing  in  itself,  and  an 
equally  complex  thing  when  applied  to  all  life,  must  be 
known  and  shown  to  be  practical  through  and  through  ; 
every  point  in  theology  must  be  taught  as  vitally  con- 
nected with  the  common  life  of  men,  or  not  at  all.  The 
bank-manager  must  be  convinced  that  Christian  doctrine 
and  the  running  of  his  bank  are  intimately  connected ; 
car-drivers  and  professional  footballers,  that  theology — 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  225 

the  Virgin-Birth,  Cross,  Resurrection,  and  all  else — 
makes  them  understand  their  work  better  and  do  it  with 
more  energy  and  more  purpose.  Theology,  in  short,  must 
be  so  taught  that  it  throws  light  upon  the  life  that 
men,  not  parsons,  lead.   .   .   . 

"  That  is  the  view  of  Christianity  that  we  want  for  the 
mission  field,  that  the  missionaries  ask  for ;  and  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  they  hardly  seem  to  imagine  how  entirely  new  a 
thing  they  are  asking,  and  how  little  we  ourselves  understand 
of  it." 

Truly,  if  there  was  a  Socrates  at  the  head  of  every 
missionary  college  or  theological  hall,  we  should  say  that 
the  problem  of  missionary  training  was  ipso  facto  solved ; 
for  his  disciples  (like  those  of  a  Greater  than  Socrates) 
would  then  be  certain  of  learning,  not  things,  but  a 
method.  If  each  missionary  who  arrives  on  the 
mission-field  arrived  ignorant  of  everything  save  how 
to  learn,  but  knowing  that  consummately,  the  Eight 
Commissions  of  the  Edinburgh  Conference  would  have 
numbered,  not  eight,  but  seven.  The  present  one 
would  have  dropped  out. 


The  Chairman  of  the  Commission,  having  heard  all  that 
had  been  urged  in  this  matter,  showed  that  it  had  been 
by  no  means  lost  sight  of,  and  was  included  in  the  main 
position  urged  by  the  Report. 

"  We  are  all  of  us  one  about  this  fundamental  position  that 
everything  depends  upon  the  quality  of  the  missionary  that  is  sent 
out,  and  that  that  quality  is  not  merely  intellectual  but  spiritual, 
not  merely  spiritual  but  physical,  not  merely  physical  but  ethical, 
and  not  any  one  of  these,  but  all  of  them  together.  It  is  the 
quality  of  a  finely  disciplined  traveller.  By  this  we  do  not  mean 
a  genius,  but  someone  built  for  the  commonplace  missionary. 
p 


226  EDINBURGH  1910 

Brethren,  do  not  be  afraid,  you  will  not  get  too  many  of  the  other 
kind.  It  is  the  average  man  and  woman  who  is  going  out,  but 
we  want  every  man  and  woman  refined  to  that  finish  of  power, 
of  explicit  power,  which  hitherto  has  not  been  possible,  and  we 
believe  that  if  missionary  education  becomes  a  matter  of  anxious 
concern,  and  definite  planning  on  a  large  scale,  then  the  common- 
place missionary  will  no  longer  be  so-called.  He  will  be  so  in- 
formed with  wisdom,  and  with  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
that  his  efficiency  will  be  multiplied  tenfold." 


6. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand,  and  not  mis- 
understand, the  emphasis  placed  by  the  Report,  by  scores 
of  correspondents,  and  by  nearly  all  the  speakers,  on  the 
necessity  for  reform  in  definitely  missionary  training. 
The  following  wise  words,  by  one  of  the  great  African 
missionaries,  Stewart  of  Lovedale,  carry  entire  con- 
viction : — 

"  Complete  and  thoroughly  trained  fitness  for  work,  whatever 
that  may  be,  is  not  merely  the  tendency,  but  the  absolute  demand  of 
the  present  day,  and  the  man  who  possesses  that  fitness  and  the 
capacity  to  use  it  is  the  man  who  is  preferred  for  any  position. 
Without  special  knowledge,  he  has  little  chance  of  success  either 
as  an  applicant  or  worker.  It  is  this  very  training  that  the 
missionary  does  not  get ;  the  purely  theological  training  he  receives 
in  common  with  the  minister  whose  life  is  to  be  spent  in  a  country 
parish  is  good  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  for  him  as  a  missionary  it  is 
wholly  defective,  because  incomplete." 

"  '  The  Dawn,'  "  this  great  African  goes  on  to  exclaim, 
in  the  words  of  a  proverb  of  his  adopted  land,  "  '  The 
Dawn  does  not  come  twice  to  awake  a  man.'  "  We  have  one 
life  and  one  opportunity  of  definite  preparation  for  it. 
"  If  men  are  not  sent  to  India,  even  to  plant  trees  there, 
without  a  course  of  instruction  at  Cooper's  Hill,  they 
should  not  be  sent  to  plant  Christianity  in  India,  Africa 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  227 

and  elsewhere  without  some  training  to  fit  them  for  such 
work." 

And — in  passing  it  may  be  said — an  African  delegate 
bore  out  completely  the  words  of  the  South  African 
missionary  when  he  vigorously  denied  that  a  less  highly- 
trained  missionary  was  good  enough  for  Africa,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  countries  of  the  Orient.  The  highest 
gifts,  he  maintained,  and  the  highest  training,  were  called 
for  in  African  missionaries  as  much  as  any  other,  and  the 
non-recognition  of  this  truth  had  been  fraught  with 
deplorable  results. 

The  memory  of  names  like  Mackenzie,  Livingstone, 
Steere,  Krapf,  Stewart,  Mackay,  Pilkington,  Coillard, 
Scott,  Bentley,  Grenfell,  Lawes,  and  many  another, 
surely  are  enough  to  clinch  the  argument. 

So  many-sided  is  the  missionary's  life,  so  numerous  the 
calls  made  upon  him,  that  it  would  be  easy  to  multiply 
out  of  all  reason  the  subjects  which  it  would  be  advisable 
to  study.  One  delegate  said  that  he  had  added  up  the 
subjects  which  he  could  have  desired  to  study  before 
reaching  the  field,  and  found  that  had  he  given  them  all 
their  due  he  would  have  started  work  at  the  age  of 
seventy !  (much  about  the  age,  by  the  way,  at  which 
Raymund  Lull  actually  did  begin  his  work  in  North 
Africa  !)  A  member  of  the  Commission  had  made  a  list 
of  twenty-four  different  subjects,  suggested  by  various 
correspondents  as  likely  to  be  profitable,  exclusive  of 
"  extras."  A  correspondent  from  China  suggested  eight 
groups  of  subjects.  At  Yale  University  the  "  Courses  of 
Study  of  the  Missionary  Department  "  number  one 
hundred-and-three  items  under  thirteen  heads  ! 

The  Report,  however,  had  reduced  the  essential  groups 
to  five.  The  demand  for  such  teaching,  said  a  member 
of  the  Commission,  had  come  not  from  themselves  but 
from  the  missionaries  in  the  field.     And  it  was  on  the 


228  EDINBURGH  1910 

strength  of  the  correspondence,  not  from  a  priori  con- 
siderations, that  these  essential  five  headings  had  been 
suggested. 


1.  The  Study  of  Comparative  Religion. — The  reader, 
when  he  recalls  for  a  moment  the  chapter  on  "  the  Gospel 
Message  in  relation  to  the  Non-Christian  Religions,"  will 
hardly  ask  for  this  point  to  be  laboured.  He  will  re- 
member the  solemn  impression  made  by  that  Commission  ; 
the  conviction  that  this  deeper  study  of  Christianity,  in  its 
reciprocal  relation  to  other  religions,  is  fraught  with  the 
most  profound  significance  and  importance,  not  only  for 
the  missionary  but  even  for  the  Church  itself.  The 
present  Report  and  to-day's  discussion  assumed  that 
the  lesson  of  that  Commission  had  been  laid  to  heart. 

2.  The  Science  and  History  of  Missions. — In  spite  of 
the  infinite  variety  of  the  conditions  of  mission  work  in 
the  different  countries,  from  Esquimaux  lands  to  the 
South  Sea  Islands,  from  Indian  territories  in  the  Americas 
to  Japan,  from  Siberia  to  the  Land  of  the  Kaffirs,  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  Science  of  Missions.  And  as  for  the 
"  History  of  Missions,"  it  begins  with  the  Gospels  and 
the  Acts  ;  there  are  vivid  lights  upon  it  in  the  Epistles 
and  a  lightning-flash  from  the  Apocalypse  ;  it  is  continued 
in  the  story  of  the  Apologists  and  the  Gnostics  of  the 
second  century,  of  the  persecutions  in  the  second  and 
third,  of  the  rapid  break  down  of  heathenism  in  the  fourth, 
of  the  mass  movements  in  the  fifth  and  following  ;  of  the 
Christianising  of  Ireland  and  Scotland — Patrick  in  Erin, 
Columba  of  fragrant  Iona  in  Alba ;  of  the  Christianising 
of  England  and  Europe  by  those  mediaeval  missions, 
which,  as  Fr.  Frere  so  clearly  showed  at  one  of  the 
evening    meetings,    are    so    richly    suggestive    in    their 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  229 

comparison  and  contrasts  with  the  missions  of  to-day  ; 
the  history  of  Islam,  its  reproach,  and  the  tardy  lifting 
of  that  reproach  away,  beginning  with  the  meteoric 
figure  of  Lull ;  the  history  of  Jesuit  missions  with 
Xavier,  and  of  all  Roman  missions  with  their  mixed 
gold  and  dross ;  down  to  the  crowded  history  of  the 
modern  period,  from  beautiful  Zinzendorf  down  to  the 
heroes  of  yesterday  and  to-day,  a  history  perhaps  best 
read  in  many  a  noble  biography: — surely  there  is  a 
course,  which,  properly  taught,  would  be  as  passionately 
interesting  as  a  romance,  and  would  of  itself  distil  a 
science  of  missions  from  its  rich  secretions  of  missionary 
ideals  and  methods,  circumstances  and  experiences, 
doings  and  sufferings  ? 

3.  Sociology. — Again  the  reader  will  recal  how  those 
two  days  on  which  the  Church  in  the  Mission  Field,  and 
Education  in  relation  to  National  Life  were  discussed 
emphasised  the  way  missions  are  moulding  the  history 
of  great  nations  :  while  many  African  races  would  never 
even  have  had  the  beginnings  of  a  history  but  for 
missions.  "  The  missionary  should  be  recognised,"  says 
the  Report,  "  as  having  a  relation  to  the  whole  develop- 
ment of  the  East,  which  is  social  in  its  widest  sense." 
These  men  and  women  who  are  being  trained  in  mis- 
sionary colleges  are  going  to  be  leaders,  some  of  them, 
participants  all  of  them,  in  movements  which  are  trans- 
forming the  very  fibre  of  ancient  civilisations,  discarding 
the  old  and  introducing  the  new.  Thus  Dr  Edward  W. 
Capen  of  Boston,  a  member  of  the  Commission,  in  his 
speech  at  the  debate.  The  missionary  must  appreciate 
the  significance  of  these  movements,  note  their  similarity 
with  world-wide  social  movements  in  the  historic  past, 
and  their  place  in  social  evolution.  These  were  no  empty 
words.  At  that  very  Conference  it  had  been  shown 
how  Japan  is  looking  in  vain  for  help  in  the  terribly 


230  EDINBURGH  1910 

novel  problem  created  by  the  industrial  and  economic 
forces  which  she  has  suffered  to  be  let  loose  in  her  midst. 
China,  too,  is  summoning  up  spirits  which  she  will  find 
it  was  easier  to  summon  up  than  it  will  be  to  control. 
From  whence  shall  she  find  guidance  and  counsel  ?  No 
delegate  could  forget  Dr  Coffin's  striking  address  on  the 
night  of  the  first  full  day  of  Conference,  in  which  he 
appealed  for  a  Christian  sociology  in  the  West  so  that  we 
may  give  a  Christian  sociology  to  the  East.  The  social 
work  and  the  missionary  work  of  the  Church  are  two 
fruits  of  the  same  passion,  and  both  must  be  kept 
equally  prominent,  equally  dear  to  her  heart. 

All  these  things  constituted  one  single  argument  for 
the  study  of  a  science  of  missionary  sociology.  This, 
of  course,  includes  the  indispensable  study  of  the  social 
life  and  traditions  and  customs  in  the  different  mission 
lands  to  which  the  candidates  are  to  go. 

"  Much  has  been  said  in  this  Conference  about  the  need  of 
naturalising  Christianity,  and  of  the  danger  and  folly  of  westernis- 
ing the  nations  of  the  East.  If  this  danger  is  to  be  avoided,  it  is 
necessary  that  the  body  of  missionaries  should  be  prepared  by  a 
study  of  sociology,  both  general  and  particular,  to  work  for  a 
Christian  community  which  shall  be  both  Oriental  and  Christian." 

4.  The  Teaching  of  How  to  Teach. — The  Chairman  of  the 
Commission  had  complained  that  so  many  preachers  and 
ordained  men  are  without  any  educational  training,  and 
so  many  educationalists  have  been  given  no  training  in 
theology  :  he  might  have  added  a  third  class,  educa- 
tionalists who  have  had  no  training  in  education  !  As, 
however,  these  abound  in  the  most  expensive  schools 
of  the  West,  it  would  hardly  be  fair  to  blame  missions 
too  severely.  The  writer  remembers  the  late  Bishop 
Creighton,  at  an  ordination  address,  impressing  on  the 
ordinands,  in  a  peculiar,  almost  awestruck  tone,  what  it 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  231 

meant  to  be  setting  their  hand  to  a  work  in  which  they 
would  be  always  and  everywhere — teachers  What  shall 
be  said  of  the  missionary,  every  moment  of  whose  life 
is  spent  in  some  form  of  direct  or  indirect  teaching ;  who 
is  always  like  one  speaking  to  children  ? — for  even  the 
educated  non-Christian  mind  is  as  blank  as  a  child's 
in  regard  to  the  preacher's  message,  while  the  uneducated 
or  barbarous  mind  is  ever  a  child's  indeed.  Surely 
then  every  missionary,  and  not  only  the  educationalist 
so-called,  should  receive  some  training  in  psychology, 
some  practical  knowledge  of  how  to  present  truth,  in  fact 
of  how  to  teach  ?  Yet  it  is  a  strange  thing,  but  true, 
that  even  to-day,  or  certainly  till  yesterday,  men,  them- 
selves indifferently  taught  and  knowing  nothing  of 
teaching,  have  been  put  down  in  mission  schools  to  learn 
from  their  own  failures,  if  they  ever  do  learn,  how  not  to 
teach.  Besides,  as  Miss  Jane  Latham — till  lately  a 
Principal  of  a  training  college  in  London — reminded  the 
Conference,  nearly  every  missionary  has  at  some  time  in 
his  life  not  merely  to  teach  in  his  general  evangelistic  work, 
not  merely  to  teach  in  his  particular  educational  work, 
but  he  has  also  to  teach  teachers  to  teach.  .  .  .  Enough  ! 
It  was  the  greatest  Teacher  of  all  who  taught  the  im- 
possibility of  the  blind  leading  the  blind. 

5.  Language  Study. — As  every  food  but  bread  may,  in 
starvation  times,  be  economised,  so  language  study 
remains  the  irreducible  minimum  of  the  missionary's 
special  equipment.  Yet  even  on  this  point  the  Chairman 
of  the  Commission  had  grave  words  to  speak.  The 
Report  merely  voiced  numerous  testimonies  from  the 
missionaries  themselves  and  from  competent  observers, 
when  he  affirmed  that  all  was  not  well  even  here  ;  that 
the  Societies  at  home  did  not  seem  to  be  quite  aware  of 
the  true  state  of  things ;  that  language  syllabuses  were 
often    absurdly   imperfect,    the    instruction   unsuperin- 


232  EDINBURGH  1910 

tended,  utterly  antiquated  and  unsound.  Here,  also, 
of  course,  the  assertions  were  safeguarded.  No  class  has 
produced  finer  linguists  than  the  class  of  missionaries  ; 
some  speakers  claimed  that  practically  all  do  reach  a  re- 
spectable facility  in  their  language.  .  .  .  Terms  like  these 
are,  it  need  hardly  be  pointed  out,  relative.  It  entirely 
depends  on  what  the  standard  is  taken  to  be.  One 
critic  will  regard  as  deplorable  results  on  which  another 
will  look  with  equanimity  or  even  complacency. 

But  absolutely  no  doubt  was  left  on  the  mind  of  the 
Conference  that  vast  improvements  should  be  made, 
could  be  made,  and  also  would  be  made,  in  language- 
training.  A  spirit  of  intense  hopefulness  prevailed.  A 
brisk  debate  developed  on  interesting  technical  questions 
as  to  where  and  how  the  training  in  language  should  be 
given.  Doctors  disagreed  with  refreshing  completeness. 
The  greatest  authority  on  African  languages  in  Germany, 
or  the  world,  Professor  Meinhof, — no  arm-chair  philo- 
logist for  all  his  phonetics  and  syllabaries,  but  a  practical 
linguist  and  teacher  of  languages, — was  emphatic  for  a 
through  grounding  at  home  before  going  to  the  field. 
Professor  Harlan  P.  Beach  of  Yale,  a  man  of  rich  experi- 
ence both  at  home  and  abroad,  vigorously  supported  the 
same  view.  Yet  the  Home  Director  of  the  China  Inland 
Mission,  which  has  been,  as  a  Society,  perhaps  most 
successful  of  all  in  language-training,  was  equally  em- 
phatic against  this  course  !  And  his  views  also  met  with 
loud  approval.  Others  were  for  combining  the  two 
methods.  Training-centres  at  home  were  talked  of, 
Government  Oriental  Colleges,  training-centres  in  the 
field — Cairo  for  the  Arabic  language,  and  similar  centres 
for  the  languages  of  India,  China,  Japan.  .  .  . 

Probably  a  reconciliation  of  all  these  views  will 
very  soon  be  arrived  at.  Probably  the  study  at  home, 
if  superintended  by  men  who  have  a  practical  knowledge 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  233 

of  the  language,  and  taught  by  natives  of  that  language, 
will  always  have  its  own  place  and  value.  This,  as  was 
pointed  out,  may,  and  must,  be  effected  by  co-operation. 
It  can  never  annul  the  equal  necessity  of  co-operating 
in  language-training  on  the  field,  whether  by  common 
training-centres  or  by  co-ordinated  and  unified 
language-syllabuses  and  examinations. 


8. 

Co-operation,  in  fact,  became  the  victorious  note  of  the 
day.  It  was  struck  resolutely  and  resonantly  by  Mrs 
Creighton  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  session.  She  spoke 
of  the  founding  of  a  United  Board  of  Missionary  Study 
which  should  carry  on  the  work  of  this  Commission,  apply- 
ing its  conclusions,  and  assisting  the  Societies  to  carry 
them  out.  In  each  country  where  missionary  interest 
is  alive  should  be  a  Board  like  this,  and  in  each  case  it 
might  develop  into  a  central  missionary  training-centre. 
Miss  Belle  Bennett,  a  delegate  from  a  Mission  Board  in 
America,  showed  that  some  such  common  plan  was 
already  being  practised  there.  And  Miss  Humphrey, 
a  member  of  an  Anglican  Candidates'  Committee, 
warmly  welcomed  the  idea  of  co-operation  : — 

"  Why  should  each  society  go  on  throwing  up  its  little  molehill 
of  knowledge  and  experience  in  such  things,  when  we  might  all 
contribute  to  raise  one  great  mountain  of  wisdom — for  the  benefit 
of  all,  as  well  as  of  each  ?  And  in  the  meantime,  I,  for  one,  go 
away  from  this  Conference,  fully  purposing  to  try  whether  those 
of  us  in  Great  Britain,  who  are  interested  in  the  selection  and 
training  of  women-missionaries,  cannot  meet  informally  in  the 
autumn  to  confer  as  to  the  possibility  of  common  action  in  certain 
matters  as  a  beginning." 

And,  finally,  the  same  note  was  struck  by  the  Chairman 
of  the  Commission  in  his  reply  on  the  whole  debate. 


234  EDINBURGH  1910 

He  hoped  and  believed  that  the  Continuation  Committee 
appointed  yesterday  would  take  notice  of  this  universal 
demand  for  co-operation  in  missionary  study,  and 
would  make  it  one  of  their  earliest  actions  to  enquire 
into  the  possibility  of  forming  these  Central  Boards 
of  Missionary  Study. 

All  this  special  missionary  training,  however,  is 
general,  as  being  indispensable  for  all  missionaries.  There 
is,  in  addition,  the  specialised  training  for  those  who 
are  going  to  take  up  some  more  highly  specialised  form 
of  mission  work.  Obviously  this  last  is  only  needed  by 
comparatively  few.  The  Report  has  a  full  section  on  it, 
but  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  anything  about  it  here. 
Two  remarks  gave  the  true  principles  which  should 
regulate  such  training.  "  This  specialised  training  is 
right  if  the  specialised  demand  is  right  "  was  one.  And 
the  other  was  the  golden  word  of  the  Nestor  of  the  Confer- 
ence, Dr  Miller,  when  he  was  led  to  the  dais. — The  Confer- 
ence and  the  Church  seemed  to  be  learning  now,  he  said, 
that  it  is  not  one  form  but  many  forms  of  activity  that 
are  needed  for  the  Christianisation  of  national  life. 
"  Nothing  had  rejoiced  him  more  than  to  perceive  how 
fully  that  lesson  has  been  learned."  And  he  pointed  out 
how  the  danger  of  attempting  too  much  would  be 
obviated  by  the  distribution  of  this  specialised  labour 
among  the  many  members  and  organisations  which 
make  up  the  whole  missionary  body.  And  thus,  too, 
the  Christian  ideal,  the  co-operation  of  all  in  the  one 
work,  would  be  realised. 

9- 

And  so  the  discussion  on  this  Commission  linked  itself 
with  the  great  event  of  yesterday.  But  it  also  pointed 
forward   to    that   of  the  morrow  ;    the   missionary   is, 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  235 

etymologically  and  actually,  only  the  Sent  :  he  repre- 
sents a  Sender.  The  Church  is  that  Sender.  "  The 
Boards  are  hindered  by  the  Churches  themselves,"  cried 
a  delegate  from  America  :  the  Churches  should  desire 
"  that  their  very  best  life  be  put  into  this  enterprise." 
As  it  is,  if  mediocre  men  are  sent  out,  there  are  protests, 
and  if  the  best  men  are  sent  out  there  are  protests.  By 
the  Church,  says  the  Report  in  its  summing-up,  by  the 
Christian  consciousness  of  the  whole  community,  is 
exercised  the  decisive  power,  controlling  the  supply  of 
candidates  and  dominating  each  stage  of  their  training. 

Thus  the  concluding  passages  of  this  Report,  as  of 
several  of  the  others,  are  the  most  impressive  and  far- 
appealing  of  all.  The  significant  title  of  the  chapter  in 
which  they  occur  is,  a  Last  Word  to  the  Church. 

The  attitude  of  the  community  is  seen  in  the  smallest 
things  as  well  as  the  greatest;  the  Bible-teaching1  it  gives, 
or  does  not  give,  in  family,  day  school,  Sunday  School, 
and  parish ;  in  the  missionary  books  it  does  or  does 
not  supply  to  its  children  to  read;  the  missionary  ideals 
it  does  or  does  not  hold  up  before  its  sons  and  daughters ; 
the  self-sacrifice,  the  tradition  of  giving  and  of  serving, 
that  are  or  are  not  seen  in  its  families  ;  the  missionary 
information  through  magazine  or  study-circle,  amongst 
children,  amongst  boys  and  girls,  among  young  men  and 
women,  in  colleges  and  in  parishes  ;  the  missionary  fire 
burning,  or  extinct — frankly  or  otherwise — in  the 
Minister  of  religion,  in  the  Teachers  of  the  theological 
colleges,  and  the  Disciples  that  sit  at  their  feet : — these 
are  the  things  that  determine  the  supply  of  candidates  for 
the  mission  field,  its  rise  and  fall,  its  quantity  and  quality. 

1  It  ought  to  be  a  matter  of  general  concern  that  candidates  "  are 
frequently  rejected  for  lack  of  this  rudimentary  knowledge,"  and  that 
"  years  of  missionary  purpose  are  frequently  wasted  without  any 
intelligent  attempt  at  self-preparation." 


236  EDINBURGH  1910 

"If  the  Church  were  fully  alive,  every  member  would  be 
awake  to  the  obligation  of  personal  service  "  ;  and,  "  If 
the  missionaries  are  to  be  more  fully  prepared  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  this  can  only  be  done  by  raising  the 
standard  even  of  the  home  ministry.  ..." 

But  not  only  so.  A  few  exceptional  individuals  will 
always,  no  doubt,  soar  away  from  all  the  standards 
familiarised  to  them  by  their  environment,  whether  it  be 
their  family,  their  congregation,  their  Church,  or  their 
country ;  and  these,  whether  they  go  abroad  or  stay  at 
home,  will  always  in  an  exceptional  way  directly  reflect 
and  show  forth  the  image  of  the  Lord  Christ.  But  it 
remains  true  that  the  great  mass  of  candidates  for  service 
abroad,  or  service  at  home,  are  profoundly  and  per- 
manently affected  by  the  environment  in  which  they  have 
been  brought  up,  and  from  which  they  have  caught  their 
ideas  and  ideals  of  the  Christian  life.  If  these  are 
mediocre,  then  those  youths  and  maidens  will  start  from 
mediocrity  ;  their  higher  will  be  but  a  little  higher  than 
the  tame  general  level.  Thus  the  Gospel  goes  forth  on  its 
quest  "  weighted  with  a  fatal  disparagement,"  and  it  is 
to  the  easy  tolerance  of  a  beggarly  standard  of  Christian 
living  and  Christian  giving  and  Christian  character  at 
home,  it  is  to  this  that  that  fatal  disparagement  is  due. 
The  World  is  One  now.  But  does  the  Church  stand  as 
One  behind  this  enterprise  to  win  that  world,  to  lose 
herself  that  she  may  save  herself  and  the  world  too  ? 
The  World  is  one,  and  year  by  year  the  tides  of  spiritual 
influence  between  East  and  West  ebb  and  flow  with  an 
ever-increasing  unimpededness  :  a  tremendous  fact,  that  is 
"  a  deep  and  solemn  challenge  to  us  to  prove  that  our 
faith  is  life  indeed  to  us,  and  that  the  Kingdom  of  God 
is  for  us  the  supreme  reality  and  the  final  fact."  If  the 
Spirit  of  Jesus  holds  sway  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church  from 
which  these  Sent  ones  go  into  all  the  world  to  preach  the 


THE  PREPARATION  OF  MISSIONARIES  237 

Gospel,  they  will  go  forth  after  a  Missionary  Training 
received  even  from  their  mother's  womb.  And  then 
will  they  have  power  to  baptise  all  nations  into  the 
fulness  of  the  Name,  and  to  teach  them  to  observe  all 
things  which  He  commanded,  and  which  they  learned 
from  Him  in  successive  classes  of  one  great  School — the 
Church  at  the  Home  Base. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


The  last  day  of  the  Edinburgh  Conference  had  now 
arrived,  and  with  it  the  subject  which  was  logically 
not  last  but  first.  The  deliberations  of  the  Conference 
had  begun,  as  it  were,  with  the  apex,  and  now,  as  the 
very  title  of  the  Commission  presenting  its  Report  to-day 
announced,  it  had  worked  its  way  down  to  the  founda- 
tion. Was  that  foundation  laid  deep  and  broad  enough 
to  support  the  Building  it  was  proposed  to  build  ?  Had 
the  Church  of  God  resources  great  enough,  organisation 
strong  enough,  spirit  keen  enough,  to  carry  through  her 
proper  task  ? 

It  was  possible  of  course  to  have  proceeded  by  the 
opposite  way.  But  such  a  course,  though  eminently 
logical,  would  have  been  eminently  ineffective.  It  was 
the  overwhelming  sense  of  the  task  to  be  accomplished 
that  gave  reality  and  desperate  earnestness  to  the  reckon- 
ing of  the  resources  which  are  at  the  present  disposal  of 
the  Church  for  that  task. 

The  individual  child,  it  is  true,  begins  by  learning  about 
that  which  is  nearest  to  hand,  and  gradually  advances  to- 
wards the  most  remote.  But  with  the  race-child  it  was  not 
so  ;  astronomy,  the  remotest  science,  was  also  its  earliest, 
and  geology,  the  nearest  of  all,  its  latest  ;  mankind 
was    overwhelmed   with    the   significance    of   the   stars 

seven  millenniums  before  he  gave  a  thought  to  the  signifi- 
238 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       239 

cance  of  the  fossils,  upon  which  his  foot  struck  every 
time  he  walked  abroad.  And  somewhat  similarly, 
though  the  individual  Christian  extends  his  interest  from 
his  parish  outward  to  the  round  world  itself,  the  Christian 
Church  as  a  body  seems  to  have  arrived  at  the  science 
of  the  Home  Base  almost  last  of  all. 

But  the  question  of  his  foundations  drives  the  builder 
to  examine  in  its  turn  the  sub-soil  in  which  they  are  to 
be  laid.  And  thus  his  thought  passes  from  the  building 
that  man  makes  to  the  great  earth  that  God  made. 
So  also  was  the  Conference  driven  by  the  consideration 
of  her  Home  Base  to  take  thought  concerning  that  on 
which  that  base  was  based : — God.  The  ultimate 
problem  presented  to  the  Conference  was  the  problem 
of  the  Church's  faith  in  God. 


i. 

With  how  little  of  system  the  science  of  the  Home 
Base  of  Missions  has  been  studied  as  a  whole  may  be  con- 
cluded from  the  modest  claim  of  the  Chairman  of  the 
Commission  in  presenting  the  Report,  that  after  all 
their  labours  they  had  not  perhaps  attained  to  a  science 
of  the  Home  Base,  but  they  had  at  least  cleared  their 
way  to  a  position  from  which  a  true  science  might  now 
begin,  and  increasingly  continue.  The  Report,  therefore, 
marks  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  missions  no  less  than 
the  others.  The  number  of  those  who  had  been  con- 
sulted and  corresponded  with  was  too  many  even  to  be 
acknowledged  by  name.  The  mass  of  the  material 
accumulated  could  not  this  time  have  been  well  ranged 
on  the  Conference  table  at  all.  To  throw  light  upon  one 
aspect  of  the  subject  alone — that  of  missionary  know- 
ledge in  schools  and  colleges — nearly  six  hundred  schools 
and  colleges  were  corresponded  with,  and  yet  the  result 


240  EDINBURGH  1910 

of  all  that  mass  of  correspondence  is  compressed  into 
seven  columns  out  of  the  hundred  and  eleven  which 
constituted  the  Report  !  This  gives  an  idea  of  the 
thoroughness  with  which  the  work  was  done. 

The  task  of  the  Commission  was  thus  defined  by  the 
Chairman,  Dr  J.  L.  Barton  of  Boston,  in  his  opening 
address,  "  to  discover  how  to  develop  and  employ  the 
entire  resources  of  the  Church. ' '  These  resources,  he  said, 
are  spiritual  and  material,  and  if  the  former  were  realised 
there  would  be  no  further  difficulty  about  the  former. 
But  what  do  we  find  ? — for  it  is  well  to  face  the  salient 
fact  at  the  outset : — one  of  the  first  discoveries  of  the 
Commission  was  the  existence  of  a  non-contributing 
Church.  In  America,  for  example,  one-tenth  of  the 
communicants  (said  the  speaker)  furnish  nineteen- 
twentieths  of  the  total  sum  given  ;  and  twenty  of  the 
leading  communions  give  to  "  Foreign  Missions  "  but 
one-eighteenth  of  their  total  contributions  to  all  objects. 
This  could  hardly  be  called  self-impoverishment  for 
the  work  abroad,  remarked  the  Chairman.  The  con- 
sequence is  that  the  Commission  was  at  every  point  of 
its  investigation  "  confronted  by  this  stupendous  fact, 
that  in  all  the  world  there  is  not  a  missionary  society 
that  is  properly  supported  to-day  for  the  conduct  of  its 
work!"  "All  the  societies  are  organised  for  a  far 
larger  work  than  they  are  able  to  conduct  because  of 
the  lack  of  support."  Christendom  is  not  yet  missionary. 
All  Christians  have  not  set  their  hand  to  the  Christian 
enterprise.  "  They  do  not,"  said  the  Chairman  in  one 
arresting  remark,  "  they  do  not  love  the  work." 

And  yet  nothing  short  of  this  can  be  the  ideal  at  which 
to  aim — that  the  Church  should  set  its  hand  to  this, 
its  most  distinctive  task,  as  one.  As  the  delegate  who 
spoke  first  said,  the  Church  of  the  living  God  must  arise 
as   a   great    Missionary  Society.     How  to   realise    this 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       241 

ideal  is  the  grand  problem,  the  problem  which  was  con- 
sidered on  this  last  day.  It  is,  indeed,  a  sign  of  an  un- 
natural state  of  things  that  it  should  be  called  an  "  ideal  " 
at  all :  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  it  should  be  an 
essential  part  not  of  the  ideal  but  of  the  actual  definition 
of  the  Church.  And  the  Conference  was  reminded  that 
there  is  one  communion  among  all  the  existing  com- 
munions of  to-day  which  has  in  actual  truth  made  world- 
wide evangelisation  the  first  of  its  ordinary  recognised 
duties,  involved  in  church-membership  itself.  The 
Moravian  Church  is  a  church  without  a  missionary 
Society,  for  it  is  a  missionary  society  with  an  active 
membership  co-extensive,  and  necessarily  co-extensive, 
with  the  membership  of  the  Church  ! 

And  this  Report,  with  the  discussion  upon  it,  made  it 
clear  that  the  problem  of  the  Home  Base  will  not  be 
solved  until  this  principle  of  the  Moravian  communion 
becomes  extended  to  all  the  other  communions  of 
Christendom.  The  missionary  enterprise  is  perhaps  no 
longer  considered  as  belonging  to  the  faddist.  But  there 
is  a  further  stage  to  be  won.  It  must  cease  to  be  con- 
sidered a  matter  for  the  specialist. 


2. 

To  restore  to  the  whole  Church  this  sense  of  her  proper 
function  amounts  to  nothing  short  of  the  re-creation  of 
the  Church — a  work  which  only  God  Himself  can  work, 
yet  a  work  in  which  man  can  join  by  the  almost  forgotten 
secret  of  prayer.  This  supreme  consideration,  which 
takes  us  to  the  highest  altitude  of  all,  had  been  brought 
home  to  the  Conference  again  and  again  from  the  first 
day,  and  increasingly  as  its  climax  was  approached.  Yet 
it  did  not  negate,  but  rather  involved,  the  practical 
question  which  was  now  before  the  Conference,  how  to 
Q 


242  EDINBURGH  1910 

take  every  phase  of  western  Christian  life  in  detail, 
and  bring  home  to  it  what  we  might  call  for  short  the 
Moravian  ideal ;  how  to  make  the  passion  for  taking  the 
Gospel  to  all  the  World  permeate  every  rank  and  class  and 
definable  section  of  Christendom  ;  how  to  get  it  appro- 
priated by  the  individual  in  every  stage  of  his  growth 
from  childhood  to  maturity  ;  how  to  lodge  it  in  the  heart 
of  the  family,  as  part  of  family  life,  and  similarly  into  the 
heart  of  the  congregation,  the  parish,  the  diocese  or 
other  major  division  of  Church  organisation,  as  part  of 
its  being ;  how  to  bring  it  into  the  school,  the  college, 
the  theological  hall,  the  ministry  of  the  Church  ;  how 
to  make  laymen,  business-men  and  professional  men, 
adopt  it  as  their  own  ;  how  to  familiarise  the  press 
with  it ;  how  to  bring  it  about  that  those  who  leave  home, 
emigrants,  clerks,  merchants,  officers  and  men  of  the 
civil  and  military  services,  shall  take  it  abroad  with 
them : — such  in  detail  are  the  several  aspects  of  the  one 
grand  problem,  and  into  every  one  of  these  does  the 
Report  of  this  Commission  inquire.  And  to  these  also 
was  the  attention  of  the  Edinburgh  Conference  directed 
in  the  crowning  day  of  its  days. 

Such  is  what  the  Chairman  neatly  termed  "  the  Training 
of  the  Home  Base  " — a  training  which,  as  we  saw  in 
the  conclusion  of  last  chapter,  is  prior  to  the  Training 
of  Missionaries.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  technical 
details  fall  outside  the  scope  of  the  present  work.  These 
must  be  left  to  the  many  ministries  charged  with  work- 
ing them  out.  And  though  the  Conference  itself  was 
concerned  with  the  technique  as  well  as  the  principles 
of  mission,  much  of  what  was  said  in  regard  to  these 
details  may  be  passed  over  in  this  account.  It  will 
suffice  simply  to  indicate  the  many-sidedness  of  the  great 
problem,  of  making  the  whole  Church  one  Society  for 
the  carrying  of  the  one  Gospel  to  one  whole  world. 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       243 

3- 

The  work  among  the  youth  of  the  Church  was  truly 
described  as  the  Hope  of  the  Future.  And  at  this 
Conference,  so  the  writer  of  this  account  was  informed 
by  one  who  had  taken  a  great  part  in  organising  the 
Conference,  nothing  was  more  remarkable  and  more  full 
of  encouragement,  nothing  gave  a  greater  impression 
of  enormous  potential  energy,  than  the  meetings  for 
young  people  which  were  organised  in  the  city  of  Edin- 
burgh in  connection  with  the  Conference,  and  other 
meetings  at  which  the  principles  of  work  among  the  young 
were  discussed.  It  was  there  most  of  all  that  the  prospect 
could  be  contemplated  with  hope.  And  some  of  the 
most  notable  utterances  of  the  whole  Conference  were 
delivered  upon  this  subject  in  its  several  aspects, — 
work  among  the  very  young,  among  children  and  young 
people,  among  school-boys  and  school-girls,  and  so 
up  to  the  men  and  women  in  the  universities  and 
colleges  of  the  West. 

The  very  enumeration  of  these  stages  brings  out  a 
truth  of  which  the  Conference  was  most  emphatically 
reminded,  that  the  education  of  these  several  classes 
must  be  undertaken  in  a  scientific  spirit  in  order  to  yield 
any  result.  Otherwise,  as  one  delegate  who  was  devoting 
all  his  time  to  the  subject  put  it,  a  vast  amount  of  the 
work  done  may  be  rather  the  Despair  than  the  Hope  of 
the  Future.  "  This  is  the  first  time,"  he  continued, 
"  that  it  has  ever  been  possible  for  a  new  generation  of 
the  Church  to  be  trained  from  infancy  for  the  Church's 
great  task  along  the  lines  of  an  assured  science."  And 
he  went  on  to  show  how  this  opportunity  made  it  in- 
evitably necessary  that  new  methods,  in  harmony  with 
modern  educational  science,  should  be  thought  out ; 
that  workers  should  be  specially  trained  for  the  work ; 


244  EDINBURGH  1910 

that  the  knowledge  and  experience  of  all  should  be  com- 
bined (here  was  co-operation  yet  once  more  !)  ;  and  that 
the  attainment  of  a  limited  quantity  of  good  results 
should  be  aimed  at,  rather  than  an  unlimited  quantity 
of  bad  ones.  And  this  warning  was  repeated  in  the  most 
unmeasured  terms  by  an  educationist  delegate,  the 
Principal  of  a  training  college  in  London.1  Speaking  with 
almost  savage  earnestness,  as  a  critic  who  only  desired 
the  good  of  the  object  of  his  criticism,  he  commented 
on  the  hopelessly  unscientific  methods  too  often  employed 
by  the  Church  among  her  young,  with  the  result,  too 
often,  of  disgusting  them  with  the  whole  subject  instead 
of  attracting  to  it.  The  psychology  of  children  must  be 
taken  into  account  by  those  who  seek  to  train  them  in 
missions,  just  as  much  as  in  any  other  subject.  And  this 
all  the  more  because  the  very  ambitiousness  of  the 
Church's  present  aim 

"  is  tending  to  carry  the  missionary  impulse  back  into  childhood 
or  early  adolescence,  and  [so]  is  removing  it  from  the  atmosphere 
of  home  to  the  hard  seats,  the  bare  floors,  and  the  often  unwelcome 
associations  of  a  school-room  or  a  meeting-house." 

Thus  the  old  haphazard  methods  which  were  sweetened 
by  the  loving  associations  of  the  home,  and  were  excus- 
able at  a  time  when  the  missionary  impulse  generally 
came  in  late  adolescence,  will  no  longer  serve  :  they 
must  be  subjected  to  changes  as  radical  as  the  situation 
demands.  The  work  and  the  worker  must  both  be  skilled. 
Otherwise  the  worker  had  best  let  it  alone  altogether. 
The  leaders  of  the  world-wide  enterprise  owe  it  to  the 
child  himself,  to  the  greatness  of  the  enterprise  itself, 
and  to  the  reputation  of  the  Church  herself,  to  think  out 
not  one  scheme  only,  but  as  many  graduated  schemes  as 
there  are  classes  to  be  reached  ;    schemes  which  will 

1  Rev.  W.  L.  Hume  Campbell. 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       245 

recognise  the  personality  of  the  child  with  his  trinity 
of  intellect,  emotion,  will ;  and  which  will  therefore 
make  real  demands  upon  the  voluntary  teachers  to 
show  their  good  will,  by  themselves  undergoing  a  training 
worthy  of  the  dignity  of  their  work. 

Such  were  some  of  the  demands  made  at  the  Con- 
ference, and  made  not  by  cynical  outsiders,  but  by  those 
who  are  trying  to  carry  out  their  precepts  into  practice. 
And  here  was  the  element  of  hope  :  that  in  recent  years 
very  great  strides  had  indeed  been  made  by  the  Societies 
both  in  America  and  Britain  in  the  direction  of  these 
ideals.  A  series  of  text-books  written  on  a  thought-out 
plan  ;  schemes  of  study,  worked  co-operatively,  for 
students  of  the  universities  and  colleges,  and  for  members, 
especially  the  younger  members,  of  the  Churches  :  such 
were  some  of  the  tangible  results  reported  to  the  Con- 
ference. Here  was  a  territorial  system  which  needed 
development  indeed,  but  which  at  least  was  in  being, 
capable  now  of  being  wrought  and  fashioned  by  the  hand 
of  the  educational  enthusiast.  The  resolution  of  the 
Conference  was  unmistakable,  and  from  it  could  be 
discerned  the  resolution  of  the  Societies  and  Boards  to 
move  forward  at  all  costs.  If  this  is  so,  the  words  with 
which  the  educationist  who  has  already  been  quoted, 
though  uttered  in  the  tone  of  warning,  may  be  taken  as 
a  message  of  splendid  hope. 

"  There  never  was  a  day  when  the  educational  possibilities  were 
so  full  of  promise;  never  a  day  when  the  future  of  the  world  trembled 
in  the  balance  as  it  does  to-day,  while  you  make  choice  between 
the  old  education  and  the  new;  never  a  day  when  the  childhood  and 
adolescence  of  Christendom  lay  so  unreservedly  at  your  feet,  ready 
to  respond  with  its  irresistible  enthusiasms  to  a  really  skilled 
training  in  knowledge,  in  devotion,  in  expression, — a  training 
which  alone  will  enable  the  scholars,  as  they  come  to  maturity,  to 
claim  and  to  win  the  allegiance  of  East  and  West  alike  to  the  Faith 
and  the  Obedience  of  the  Living  Christ." 


246  EDINBURGH  1910 

And  this  opinion,  advanced  by  an  educationist, 
was  strikingly  though  unconsciously  endorsed  by  one 
who  had  practical  knowledge  both  of  work  in  a  parish 
and  in  a  theological  college,  Professor  D.  S.  Cairns. 
This  Chairman  of  a  Commission  which  had  dealt  with 
the  most  (apparently)  remote,  most  inner  subject  of 
all,  had  had  the  privilege,  he  said,  of  seeing  these  new 
schemes  of  missionary  study  in  the  working,  and  from 
practical  experience  wished  to  endorse  "  with  all  his 
force  "  what  had  been  said  as  to  the  value  of  this  method 
and  the  hopefulness  of  it.  He  could  see,  he  said  em- 
phatically, no  better  way  of  bringing  the  great  un- 
touched, unmoved,  uninstructed  public  in  our  Churches 
into  devoted  interest  in  the  missionary  enterprise. 

And  this  missionary  study  work,  too,  like  everything 
else,  was  found  to  lead  the  mind  of  the  Conference 
to  the  higher  problem  indicated  at  the  beginning  of  the 
chapter.  "  We  need,"  said  one  of  those  most  actively 
concerned  in  this  great  work, 

"  we  need  to  face  what  this  [work]  means  and  what  are  its  demands. 
It  is  the  hope  of  the  future  only  inasmuch  as  it  is  making  for  a  new 
standard  of  Christian  living,  a  truer  understanding  of  discipleship, 
and  a  new  experience  of  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.  Into 
this  we,  who  are  workers  among  the  young,  must  lead  them.  The 
Church's  workers  among  children  and  young  people  must  be 
ahead  of  all  in  the  experience  and  discipline  of  the  Christian  life." 


The  movement  in  the  universities  and  colleges  was, 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  emphasised  both  in  the 
Report  and  in  the  discussion.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century 
its  importance  has  been  recognised  by  those  who  were 
in  a  position  to  study  its  quiet  working.  Its  missionary 
aim  is  only  one  aspect  of  its  aim  to  make  the  universities 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       247 

and  colleges  centres  of  distinctively  Christian  influence. 
And  its  plan  of  missionary  study,  which  was  nearly  a 
decade  ahead  of  the  parallel  work  among  the  Churches 
and  congregations,  is  one  aspect  of  that  missionary  work 
which  is  of  equal  importance  with  its  main  work  of  secur- 
ing actual  candidates  for  the  foreign  service  of  the 
several  Churches.  The  consideration  of  this  branch  of 
the  Home  Base  of  Missions  once  again  directed  the  minds 
of  the  delegates  to  the  high,  ultimate,  unescapable 
question — the  standard  of  Christian  life  in  the  Church. 
It  is  surely  the  lowness  of  that  standard  which,  in  the  last 
analysis,  is  accountable  for  the  mass  of  intellectual 
unsettlement  that  exists  among  the  students  of  the 
West.  This  matter  was  pointedly  alluded  to  by  the 
General  Secretary  of  the  Student  Christian  Movement  in 
Britain.     "  I  do  not  say,"  he  said, 

"  that  are  there  fewer  students  committed  to  the  Christian  position, 
— there  is  a  large  number, — but  I  do  say  that  the  majority  of  those 
come  with  great  difficulty  to  an  assurance  of  belief,  and  one  result  of 
that  is,  that  at  the  time  when  men  might,  and  perhaps  ought  to,  be 
facing  a  missionary  vocation  they  are  not  ready  to  do  so.  They  are 
not  sure  enough  of  their  own  position  viewed  especially  on  the  intel- 
lectual side,  and  when  they  reach  a  position  of  assurance,  it  is 
then  too  late  for  them  to  offer.  I  believe  if  you  knew  the  facts 
as  some  others  know  them,  there  is  nothing  you  would  pray  for  more 
than  the  work  of  the  Student  Movement  in  all  our  colleges." 

And  just  as  the  standard  of  the  parent's  consecration  has 
an  important  bearing  on  the  attitude  of  the  child,  the  boy 
and  the  girl,  towards  the  Christian  enterprise,  so  it  often 
has  a  great  influence  upon  the  son  and  the  daughter 
in  those  years  just  before  they  leave  the  home.  Indeed, 
as  the  same  speaker  pointed  out,  speaking  from  many 
bitter  experiences  as  the  Secretary  of  a  Student  Volunteer 
Movement,  the  parent's  low  standard  may  bear  critically 
and  injuriously  upon  the  life-decision  of  his  son  or  of  his 


248  EDINBURGH  1910 

daughter.  On  this  point  he  spoke  words  that  startled 
and  hurt.  "  The  power  of  the  Christian  Church  is 
against  us,"  he  cried.  The  next  sentences  showed  what 
he  meant. 

"  It  is  very  difficult  for  a  man  to  decide  to  break  home  ties  and 
to  go  to  the  mission  field.  Those  of  us  who  spend  a  great  part  of 
our  lives  talking  with  men  who  are  facing  a  missionary  vocation, 
realise  the  agony  of  spirit  through  which  the  greater  number  of 
those  who  decide  to  be  missionaries  pass  before  their  decision  is 
reached.  That  decision  is  greatly  complicated  for  them,  and 
aborted  for  them,  by  the  fact  that  the  pressure  of  their  own  home 
and  the  pressure  of  their  own  friends  is,  in  the  majority  of  cases, 
brought  to  bear  against  their  deciding  to  go  abroad.  I  am  sorry 
if  that  remark  is  painful  to  some  people  here,  but  I  believe  that 
from  a  somewhat  wide  experience  of  the  colleges  of  this  country 
it  can  be  justified.  Cannot  you  help  us  ?  ,  and  cannot  you  help  us 
by  beginning  reformation  here  in  this  audience  ?  I  say  that  for 
this  reason,  that  I  know  that  Mission  Board  members  and  ministers 
are  often  offenders  in  their  own  families." 

And  he  backed  his  assertion  by  some  lurid  examples 
which  only  showed  how  far  harder  it  is  for  parents  to 
lay  their  children  on  the  altar  of  God  than  it  is  to  lay 
their  substance  or  even  their  own  selves. 

But  the  movement  in  the  universities  has  an  import- 
ance that  is  independent  of  its  enlistment  of  actual 
candidates  for  the  missionary  calling.  From  the 
universities  and  colleges  go  the  leaders  in  all  the  walks 
of  life.  Again,  students  of  to-day  will  soon  be  the  parents 
of  the  children  who,  in  the  next  generation,  will  in  their 
turn  take  the  lead.  And  yet  again,  as  the  Master  of 
Magdalene  College,  Cambridge,  reminded  the  Conference, 
it  is  they  who  supply  the  masters  in  the  schools,  on  whom 
far  more  than  on  the  casual  preacher  or  lecturer  the 
missionary  enthusiasm  of  the  schools  depend.  Dr 
Donaldson  had  the  right  to  speak  on  this  subject,  for,  as 
he  told  the  Conference,  he  had  been  for  a  quarter  of  a 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       249 

century  on  the  staff  at  Eton,  and  for  the  last  six  years 
had  been  Head  of  a  Cambridge  college.  "  I  think," 
he  said, 

"  that  too  much  stress  is  laid  on  trying  to  reach  the  boys.  What 
you  want  to  do  in  the  Public  Schools  is  to  reach  the  masters,  and  I 
would  like  that  point  brought  out.  If  we  could  only  get  on  the 
staff  of  every  public  school  in  this  country — I  suppose  it  is  true 
also  of  America — one  man  thoroughly  keen  about  mission  work, 
it  would  make  the  whole  difference  to  the  younger  generation." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  these  words  apply 
equally  to  all  national  schools,  whether  "  provided  "  or 
"non-provided,"  and  prove  the  immense  importance  of 
strengthening  the  movement  among  students  of  all 
normal  schools  and  training  colleges. 

5- 
Parallel  to  the  influences  exerted  in  the  home,  the 
school,  the  college,  is  the  church  influence  that  embraces 
all.  How  shall  all  the  congregations  be  inspired  with 
the  Moravian  ideal  ?  The  answer  to  the  question  seemed 
clearly  to  point  to  the  ministry  of  the  Church.  Here  was 
a  principle  which  had  been  known  as  far  back  as  the 
time  of  the  prophetess  Deborah   .    .    . 

"  For  that  the  leaders  took  the  lead  in  Israel, 
For  that  the  people  offered  themselves  willingly, 
Bless  ye  the  Lord." 

There  was  a  clearly  causal  connection  between  the  two 
facts  which  made  Deborah  bless  God.  And  when  shall 
all  the  leaders  in  our  Israel  be  found  taking  the  lead  in 
this  world-wide  enterprise  ?  When  they  shall  have  all 
been  inspired  with  the  Moravian  ideal  in  their  theological 
colleges,  where  their  ministerial  ideal  is  being  formed  and 
their  instruction  in  practical  work  is  being  elaborated. 
And   how   shall   this   be  ?     The   answer  given   at   the 


250  EDINBURGH  1910 

Conference  was  threefold  ;  first,  by  inspiring  students 
with  that  ideal  before  they  reach  the  theological  college  ; 
secondly,  by  organising  missionary  study  in  those  colleges 
themselves  ;  and  thirdly,  by  ensuring  that  the  men  on 
the  staffs  of  theological  colleges  have  that  ideal  in  their 
hearts.  In  regard  to  these  methods  some  excellent 
things  were  said  by  a  professor  at  an  American  uni- 
versity, himself  a  man  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
working  of  a  school  of  divinity.  He  said  how  much  these 
colleges  owed  to  the  Student  Christian  Movement. 
The  missionary  interest  of  the  students  has  often  been 
quite  in  advance  of  that  of  their  teachers.  But,  he  went 
on  to  say,  what  is  shown  in  the  curricula  to-day  does  not 
show  all  that  is  being  done  for  the  instilling  of  the 
missionary  idea,  though  at  the  same  time  he  desiderated 
the  addition  of  a  course  on  missions  even  to  an  already 
over-crowded  programme  : 

"  You  will  find  to-day  that  those  who  are  teaching  the  whole 
scope  of  missions,  and  in  apologetics  and  in  theology  as  well,  are 
teaching  those  larger  lines  of  comparative  religion,  of  comparative 
theology,  of  comparative  ethics,  so  that  the  whole  atmosphere  .  .  . 
is  charged  with  the  missionary  idea." 

And  Professor  C.  E.  Brown  concluded  his  well-spent 
five  minutes  by  showing  how  theological  colleges,  where 
the  Moravian  ideal  is  alive,  are  bringing  men  to  face  the 
call  of  the  work  abroad  ;  are  training  missionary  leaders 
for  the  Churches  ;  and  are  raising  up  a  body  of  men  who 
will  contribute  to  the  missionary  literature  of  the  future. 
In  fact  it  is  largely  true  that  the  theological  halls  of 
to-day  are  a  master-key  to  the  problem. 

6. 

The  last  afternoon  of  the  Conference  was  drawing  to  a 
close,  and  there  was  yet  one  more  great  movement  to  be 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       251 

brought  before  the  notice  of  Conference — the  missionary 
movement  organised  by  laymen  among  laymen. 

As  in  a  long  race  the  pace  quickens  at  the  last  lap ; 
as  the  last  and  greatest  spurt  takes  place  up  the  straight 
that  leads  to  the  finish  ;  so  was  it  now  at  the  Edinburgh 
Conference.  The  American  layman  is  to  these  great 
conventions  trained  and  seasoned.  Nothing  tires  him. 
And  now  the  close  of  the  long  Conference  found  him 
still  bursting  with  energy.  He  had  waited  long  for 
his  opportunity,  and  now  he  was  given  it.  An  un- 
broken sequence  of  laymen  speakers,  almost  all  from 
the  North  American  continent,  kept  the  interest  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  Conference  on  the  increase  till  the  end. 
Each  orator  seemed  more  animated  than  the  one  before. 
Breathless,  the  Conference  was  swept  along  in  one  acceler- 
ando, up  to  the  very  close  of  this  closing  session  of  the 
Committee  of  the  whole  House. 

We  have  said  laymen.  Among  these  last  speakers, 
however,  was  one  woman  speaker — Mrs  Gladding,  the 
Chairwoman  of  the  Foreign  Department  of  the  Young 
Women's  Christian  Association  of  the  U.S.A.  Her 
intervention  reminded  the  Conference  of  the  essential 
importance  of  women's  work.  The  fact  that  before  her 
and  after  her  were  a  whole  company  of  laymen  speakers 
only  emphasised,  in  reality,  the  backwardness  of  men  as 
compared  with  women  in  the  world-wide  enterprise, 
and  the  need  for  special  effort  on  their  behalf.  The 
Chairman,  Dr  Barton,  had  at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
day  hit  off  the  situation  by  the  satirical  stanza  : — 

"  In  the  field  of  Christian  battle, 
In  the  bivouac  of  life, 
You  will  find  the  Christian  soldier — 
Represented  by  his  wife  "... 

and  "  I  can  assure  you  he  is  well  represented,"  continued 
the  Chairman  of  the  Commission  on  the  Home  Base, 


252  EDINBURGH  1910 

"  but  the  Church  cannot  afford  to  rest  on  that  repre- 
sentation alone."  Place  aux  dames  is  a  maxim  that 
there  is  no  need  to  press  in  an  enterprise  where  the  services 
of  the  all  are  indispensable.  And  if  but  few  women- 
speakers  were  heard  at  this  Conference,  and  special  work 
for  or  by  women  was  seldom  mentioned,  it  was  certainly 
not  because  of  their  backwardness  in  this  enterprise  of 
the  world-mission.  The  work  done  by  women  for  this 
Conference,  and  especially  on  some  of  the  Commissions, 
was  a  sufficient  proof  to  the  contrary.  The  reason 
was,  rather,  because  the  great  leading  problems 
of  the  work  at  home  or  abroad  concerned  the  Church 
as  a  whole,  without  distinction  of  sex ;  because  in 
many  forms  of  specialised  work — such  as  that  among 
children,  young  people,  students — most  of  what  was 
said  applied  equally  to  both  the  sexes ;  because  so  much 
of  women's  work  is  in  connection  with  the  ordinary 
parochial  organisation,  and  stands  in  less  need  of  special 
treatment  and  special  mention  at  a  general  Conference. 


Certain  it  is  that  there  are  functions  in  this  enterprise 
of  world  evangelisation  which  can  best,  perhaps  can  only, 
be  performed  by  laymen.  The  utilisation  of  the  great 
existing  agency  of  the  press  ;  the  capturing  of  the 
sympathy  of  the  great  firms  that  have  business  abroad, 
representatives  and  agents  of  which  are  found  all  over 
the  mission  field ;  the  animating  of  men  in  the  civil 
and  military  services  with  the  Christian  ideal  in  its 
fulness ;  and  the  bringing  of  business  experience  to 
bear  on  organisation  of  missions  and  the  conduct  of 
their  work  abroad — these  are  all  matters  in  which  it  is 
indispensable  that  laymen  should  take  the  leading  part. 
In  Britain,  indeed,  he  has  for  a  very  long  time  taken  a, 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       253 

leading  and  essential  part  in  the  whole  missionary 
enterprise,  and  possibly  the  enormous  prominence  which 
laymen's  work  is  assuming  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada  to-day,  as  these  speeches  at  the  Conference 
showed,  is  to  some  extent  the  catching-up  of  a  long  lead. 
But  even  if  this  be  so,  there  could  have  been  no  British 
or  Continental  delegate  who  did  not  feel  uplifted  by  the 
enthusiasm  of  these  men  from  the  west  of  the  Atlantic, 
or  failed  to  receive  instruction  from  the  reports  they 
now  made. 

For  the  Continent  spoke  M.  le  Capt.  Bertrand.  As  a 
well-known  explorer  and  convert  to  missions — possibly 
to  the  religion  of  Christ  itself — by  what  he  had  himself 
seen  in  Africa,  the  weight  of  his  remarks  was  in  inverse 
proportion  to  their  length.  They  must  certainly  be 
quoted  here.  After  mentioning  the  German  and  the 
French  missions  which  he  had  himself  studied  in  Central 
and  South-Central  Africa,  he  went  on  : — 

"  I  must  say  I  was  struck  by  that  Christian  work.  The  opposer 
of  missions  is  not  so  much  the  heathen  as  the  white  man.  Briefly, 
the  missionaries  in  Africa,  and  other  countries  too,  have  to-day  a 
great  battle  to  fight,  not  only  against  heathenism,  but  against  the 
vices  of  our  civilisation.  It  is  a  pity  that  in  our  civilised  country 
so  many  people,  especially  young  men,  do  not  take  the  trouble  to 
study  missionary  work  as  it  is,  and  too  often  oppose  it  through 
ignorance.  In  Europe  to-day  laymen  have  to  come  to  the  front 
and  help  missionary  work.  May  I  ask,  as  one  of  the  practical 
results  of  this  Conference  and  as  a  practical  help  to  missions,  that 
a  scheme  of  co-operation  of  the  various  national  laymen  in  Europe 
might  be  studied,  that  this  movement  might  become  a  European 
one  too." 

Thus  the  Continent.  Britain,  represented  by  Sir 
Andrew  Fraser,  confined  itself  to  telling  of  the  wonder- 
ful things  it  had  seen  among  the  business  men  of  Canada, 
— "  some  of  them  with  hard  hands,  and  all  of  them  with 


254  EDINBURGH  1910 

hard  heads  "  :  how  these  men  had  met  together  in  a  great 
convention  and  asked  two  questions  :  "  What  is  required 
so  that  no  one  in  Canada  shall  be  able  to  say,  '  I  have  not 
heard  the  Gospel  because  there  was  no  man  to  tell  me 
it,'  "  and  "  What  is  required  for  us  to  meet  the  obligations 
that  rest  on  us  in  regard  to  that  portion  of  the  heathen 
world  that  lies  to  our  hand  ?  "  As  business  men,  whose 
first  function  is,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  to  recognise 
their  stewardship  of  the  silver  and  the  gold,  they  fixed 
their  responsibility  for  the  practical  answering  of  those 
two  questions  at  £900,000  a  year,  and  they  said,  "  That 
sum  must  be  raised."  And  they  are  going  to  raise  it. 
Sir  Andrew  Fraser  proceeded  to  expound  the  real 
lesson  of  this  experience,  and  what  he  said  was  the 
burden  of  all  the  speeches  from  the  American  delegates. 
It  also  brought  the  Conference  very  near  two  of  the 
grand  lessons  of  Edinburgh  1910 — the  unity  of  the  world 
as  the  scene  of  the  Christian  enterprise — "  The  Field 
is  the  World,"  said  One,  nearly  two  milleniums  ago  ; — 
and  the  necessity  for  conceiving  and  viewing  and  planning 
for  that  work  as  one.  Unification  in  the  conception  will 
bring  co-operation  in  the  execution  as  surely  as  night 
follows  day.  "  The  great  points,"  said  Sir  Andrew, 
"  that  seem  to  me  of  immense  importance  are  these, 

the  consecration  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  of  the  business  capacity 
of  the  great  business  community.  Secondly,  the  distribution  of 
responsibility  for  this  work  that  has  got  to  be  done.  Thirdly,  the 
systematic  giving  ;  no  temporary  enthusiasm,  no  mere  sporadic 
effort,  but  a  steady  business  determination,  week  by  week  to  give 
what  can  be  given,  of  money  and  energy  and  labour,  to  the  cause  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  home  and  abroad,  for  the  evangelisation 
of  the  world  and  the  winning  of  His  world  for  Him." 

Compare  these  points  with  those  in  which  a  well- 
known  American  delegate,  J.  Campbell  White,  who  had 
given  seven  years  to  working  out  this  question,  sums 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       255 

up  his  experiences  and  his  convictions.  "  Define  your 
task  !  "  he  exclaimed.  It  has  strangely  taken  the 
Churches  of  N.  America  a  hundred  years  of  missionary 
effort  to  ask  the  question  what  force  of  mission-workers 
was  really  needed  in  order  to  meet  the  opportunity  that 
confronted  them  in  the  mission  field.  The  result  is  that 
the  laymen  who  asked  that  question  have  been  able  to 
go  to  their  constituencies  and  tell  them  that  they  must 
quadruple  their  efforts  if  the  work  is  to  be  overtaken. 
Australia,  too,  is  asking  the  same  question,  and  promises 
to  return  a  like  practical  answer.  "  Undertake  the 
whole  task  !  "  he  continued.  Only  thus  will  a  business 
man  undertake  any  part  of  that  task.  "  Men  are  willing 
to  have  the  whole  burden  laid  upon  them  of  the  Church's 
duty  to  evangelise  the  whole  world  "  ; — therefore  make 
your  appeal  for  the  world  rather  than  for  the  society  in 
which  you  are  interested.  Then  again,  in  each  great 
city  or  district,  show  the  churches  of  that  city  or  district 
what  they  are  doing  as  a  whole,  and  what  they  ought  to 
be  doing  if  they  did  their  full  share.  And  to  this  end 
have  a  committee  "  that  will  sit  from  year's  end  to  year's 
end  "  to  organise  and  carry  through  the  work  of  visiting 
and  informing  and  soliciting  which  it  is  as  indispensable 
as  it  is  encouraging.  ...  So  flowed  on  the  torrent  of 
rapid  speech,  desperate  tides  of  enthusiasm,  exhortation, 
information  forced  through  the  channel  of  five-minute 
addresses :  .  .  .  budgets  doubled  and  trebled ;  business 
men  first  won  for  the  Church  of  God  by  being  interested 
in  the  enterprise  of  her  work  for  God  ;  laymen  giving  not 
only  money  but  time  and  leadership  ;  rich  men  no 
longer  insulted  by  a  demand  from  these  highwaymen 
of  to-day  for  their  spare  pence,  but  captured  by  the  round 
challenge  to  surrender  both  money  and  life ;  move- 
ments which,  for  all  their  immense  scope,  mean  in- 
dividual  effort   among   individuals   from  beginning   to 


256  EDINBURGH  1910 

end  of  them  ;  estimates,  budgets,  statistics,  facts,  figures, 
ways  and  means. 

8. 

Yet  not  for  one  moment  did  the  Conference  forget, 
could  it  forget,  what  in  Report  and  discussion  and 
address  had  been  borne  in  upon  its  very  soul,  that 
these  things  could  not  fully  represent  the  ultimate 
problem  of  all, — the  problem  of  the  Church's  faith  in 
God. 

They  could  not  fully  represent  that  problem.  But  they 
represented  phases  of  it,  and  rightly  understood  they 
partook  of  its  essential  spirituality.  The  Kingdom 
of  God  indeed  cannot  be  reckoned  or  measured  by 
figures  ;  but  it  has  a  place  for  those  who  deal  in  figures. 
Among  the  charisms  of  the  One  Spirit  are  "  helps,  govern- 
ments." Among  His  instructions  is  the  one  to  "  him 
that  giveth"  to  "  do  it  with  liberality." 

Several  touches  served  to  show  that  these  enthusiasts 
themselves  had  no  need  to  be  reminded  of  this  great 
matter.  Early  in  the  day  a  leader  in  the  work  of  the 
American  home  base,  Dr  C.  R.  Watson,  had  justified  these 
enterprises  as  a  method  "  of  making  more  definite  and 
clear  to  the  Church  the  vastness  of  the  problem,  and 
of  bringing  it  into  terms  which  some  men  who  cannot 
comprehend  other  terms  will  understand."  Further, 
it  was  a  method  that  had  at  its  heart  a  desire  to  have  a 
comprehensive  vision  of  the  whole  world  ;  a  desire  for 
definiteness  ;  a  desire  for  self-sacrifice — he  had  seen 
men's  faces  light  gloriously  as  their  imaginations  caught 
the  vision  and  their  will  addressed  itself  to  the  revealed 
task.  .  .  .  His  father's  son  was  above  suspicion  of  un- 
spirituality  ; — but  even  had  he  not  spoken,  the  Conference 
could  hardly  fail  to  be  convinced  by  what  it  actually 
heard  and  saw.     Work  of  this  sort  deals  first  and  fore- 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       257 

most  with  persons,  and  the  work  that  touches  persons 
is  holy  because  it  touches  the  whole  man, — thus  judged 
the  member  of  the  Commission  who  summed  up  the 
results  of  the  session,  himself  a  clergyman  and  an  English- 
man. Only  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  can  touch  the  whole 
spirit  of  man.  And  as  for  gold,  that  essential  accident 
of  the  enterprise  of  the  kingdom,  and  more  particularly 
of  the  task  of  the  Home  Base,  it  was  a  business  man  that 
thereon  spoke  a  golden  word.  There  was  something 
noteworthy  in  the  chance  fact  that  the  very  last  of  the 
unofficial  speakers  of  the  day,  and  of  all  the  days  of  the 
Conference,  should  have  been  a  layman,  a  business 
man,  a  rich  man,  who,  like  a  certain  rich  man  of  Judaea, 
had  been  shown  that  in  his  riches  lay  his  opportunity 
for  the  consecration  of  his  self,  but,  unlike  him,  had 
decided  to  seize  the  opportunity.  He  spoke  but  a  few 
words,  the  speech  of  a  layman  who  does  not  pretend 
to  know  how  to  speak.  Perhaps  it  was  more  colloquial 
than  suited  most  tastes  ;  but — it  came  evidently  from  an 
experience,  and  its  simple  sincerity  impressed.  "  Are 
we  letting  down  the  tone  of  this  Conference  at  this  last 
meeting,"  he  asked, 

"  because  we  are  needing  money  ?  Not  a  bit  !  Last  night  we 
were  led  up  on  to  the  Mount  of  Privilege  and  told  that  God  was 
sufficient  for  us.  We  subscribe  to  that  to-day.  .  .  .  We  think 
that  this  question  of  money  is  a  sordid,  lustful  thing,  but  it  is  not. 
It  can  be  transmuted  and  made  just  as  sacred  as  any  other  part 
of  our  duty,  and  I  do  not  know  anyone  who  would  say  to  me, 
as  a  business  man,  that  necessarily  because  I  am  after  the  money, 
that  the  money  is  my  master.  I  admit  that  in  the  past  it  was, 
but  I  am  now  trying  to  become  master  of  my  money.  Take  my 
money  and  my  wealth  ;  it  is  just  part  of  me.  When  I  am  giving 
my  money,  I  am  just  giving  so  much  of  myself.  It  is  what  we  do 
with  our  money  that  translates  our  attitude  towards  the  money, 
and  our  attitude  towards  Jesus  Christ ;  and  so  I  say  we  have  not 
come  down  from  last  night.     I  want  this  question  of  money  to  be 

R 


258  EDINBURGH  1910 

just  as  real  and  just  as  helpful  a  thing  in  our  life  as  any  other 
point  .   .   ." 

— words  recalling  those  of  the  Rabbi  whom  Browning's 
imagination  created, 

"  Let  us  cry,  '  All  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now,  than  flesh  helps  soul ! ' ' 

Thus  it  was  a  plain  business  man  who,  at  the  close  of 
a  day  given  necessarily  to  matters  of  detail  and  method, 
work  and  planning  for  work,  brought  the  Conference  to 
remember  once  more  that  consecration  must  take  as 
many  forms  as  life,  and  that  the  soul's  self-consecration, 
which  is  the  real  problem  of  the  Home  Base  of  Missions, 
depends  not  only  ultimately  but  immediately  on  the 
soul's  vision  of  God. 


CHAPTER  XIV  CONCLUDED 

"  THE   HOME   BASE   OF  MISSIONS  " 

God  is  the  ultimate  Home  Base  of  Missions. 

Sent  and  Sender  alike  fly  homing  to  God.  And  the 
base,  where  alone  the  resources  necessary  for  the  super- 
human enterprise  are  stored,  is  God. 


Words  ! — Yet  the  Edinburgh  Conference,  if  it  had 
done  anything,  had  shown  that  the  whole  crisis  of  missions 
just  turns  upon  whether  the  Church  of  Christ  can  get 
behind  these  words,  discover  there  a  palpable  reality, 
and  then  demonstrate  her  discovery  to  the  world.  Is 
this  possible  ? 

The  New  Testament,  at  least,  is  a  standing  monument 
to  the  fact  that  the  Church  of  Christ  has  in  times  past 
discovered  behind  these  words  a  palpable  reality,  and 
has  demonstrated  its  discovery  to  the  world. 

And  God-reality  is  independent  of  time.  What  was 
once  true  and  possible  is  at  any  moment  true  and  possible. 

Therefore  it  is  true  that  God  is  to-day  the  ultimate 
Home  Base  of  Missions,  the  available  and  sufficient 
source  and  resource.  And  it  is  possible  for  the  Church 
to  realise  that  truth  and  prove  it  upon  her  life  to  the 
world  of  to-day. 

And  therefore  "  the  Sufficiency  of  God  "  is  not  a  word 
only,  but  a  fact.     As  much  of  a  working  fact  and  as  full 

359 


260  EDINBURGH  1910 

of  personal  significance  as  it  was  for  the  man,  and  his 
correspondents,  who  in  56  a.d.  received  these  words 
from  God  in  Christ — 

MY  •  GRACE  •  IS  •  SUFFICIENT  •  FOR  •  THEE. 


"  The  Sufficiency  of  God,"  it  was  said  at  one  of  the 
striking  evening  addresses, 

"  is  so  obviously  the  soul  of  the  Christian  enterprise  that 
the  work  of  missions  would  be  the  most  consummate  folly 
without  it.  For  there  is  no  task  in  the  history  of  the 
world  so  stupendous  as  the  endeavour  to  bring  the  Message  of 
Christ  to  the  heart  of  all  nations.  Almost  every  phase  of  difficulty 
is  represented  to  such  an  extent  that  the  presence  of  the  Power 
of  God  alone  makes  the  work  rational.  Without  it,  the  disparity 
between  the  undertaking  and  the  means  of  achievement  would 
make  the  problem  incomparably  foolish.  But  the  sufficiency  of 
God  makes  the  difference  between  folly  and  sublimity." 

We  have  seen  that  the  Report  and  the  discussion  on 
the  Home  Base  of  Missions  suggested,  though  perhaps 
unintentionally,  a  situation  which  seemed  to  be  bright 
with  hope,  or  at  least  to  inspire  hopefulness.  That 
might  be  called  the  positive  aspect  of  the  present  situation. 
And  we  have  seen  how  the  contemplation  of  it  led  the 
Conference  at  every  turn  to  the  thought  of  the  Sufficiency 
of  God. 

But  there  was  another  side  to  this  : — beside  the  hope- 
inspiring  positive  aspect  the  Conference  had  also  to 
contemplate  a  more  negative,  a  more  ominous  one. 
The  contemplation  of  this,  no  less,  led  to  the  thought  of 
the  Sufficiency  of  God ;  only,  while  the  first  led  hopefully, 
the  second  drove  desperately  to  that  thought. 

This  deep  note  was  sounded  at  Edinburgh,  not  often, 
but  sufficiently.     It  was  touched  on  the  evening  of  the 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       261 

very  first  full  day  of  Conference,  when  he  who  then  spoke 
deplored  the  present  failure  of  Christendom  to  give  a 
Christian  sociology  to  the  New  East,  to  help  her  to  settle 
the  perplexities  that  are  beginning  to  trouble  her  soul. 
But  towards  the  end  of  the  Conference  the  note  was 
struck,  hard  and  startlingly  vibrant,  by  another  speaker. 
His  address  was  one  of  Dower.  It  impressed  because  it 
hurt. 

Professor  James  Denney  fully  acknowledged  the  large 
amount  of  interest  which  the  Church  is  taking  in  missions 
to-day.  The  World  Missionary  Conference  was  a 
sufficient  testimony  to  that.  Further,  the  Christian 
enterprise  has  attained  to  such  dimensions  and  entered 
so  largely  into  the  general  movement  of  human  things 
that  it  is  impossible  for  an  intelligent  man  not  to  take 
some  sort  of  interest  in  missions.  But  it  was  very  often 
a  disinterested  interest,  the  interest  of  the  intelligent 
bystander  who  cannot  afford  to  be  utterly  ignorant  of 
what  is  going  on  in  his  world ;  but  very,  very  little  of  it  was 
the  conscientious  and  responsible  interest  of  people  who 
feel  that  the  work  of  missions  is  their  work,  and  still  less 
was  it  the  enthusiastic  interest  of  those  who  feel  the  work 
laid  upon  their  hearts  through  the  consciousness  of 
what  they  themselves  owe  to  Christ. 

Members  of  Conference  who  had  endorsed  the  rinding 
that  the  problems  of  the  mission  field  resolve  themselves 
into  the  problem  of  the  Home  Base,  were  hardly,  he 
thought,  fully  aware  how  true  their  analysis  was.  The 
communion  to  which  he  belonged,  and  he  merely  took 
it  as  a  typical  example,  had  increased  its  membership 
by  one  person  for  every  two  congregations  in  five  years  ! 
and  the  number  of  candidates  for  the  ministry  was 
much  smaller  to-day  than  it  was  a  good  many  years 
ago  !  .  .  .  And  then,  very  bluntly  : — the  ultimate  ex- 
planation  of    it   which    deeply   concerns    the   Church 


262  EDINBURGH  1910 

abroad  and  the  work  of  missions  is  just  this,  "  that  men 
are  not  coming  forward  as  ministers,  nor  coming  forward 
as  missionaries,  because  they  are  not  coming  forward  into 
the  membership  of  the  Christian  Church  at  all." 

"  There  is  no  use  calling  for  reinforcements  at  the  front  while 
the  recruiting  is  stopped  at  home,  and  that  is,  to  a  large  extent, 
the  grave  situation  with  which  we  are  comfronted.  .  .  .  Some- 
thing must  happen  to  the  Church  at  home  if  it  is  going  even  to  look  at 
the  work  which  has  been  put  on  it  by  this  Conference." 

What  that  something  was  the  speaker  made  plain  in 
the  remainder  of  his  address.  And  what  he  said  just 
amounted  once  more  to  this — the  realisation  of  the  Fact 
of  God  as  revealed  in  Christ,  and  the  sufficiency  of 
God  when  that  Fact  is  grasped  by  the  faith  which  wills 
to  know  it  at  any  price.  The  vision  that  will  inspire  the 
Church  is  not  that  of  a  billion  men  who  do  not  know 
the  One  God,  but  of  the  One  God  who  gave  His  Son  for 
the  billion  men.  For  "  love  like  that  can  only  be 
answered  by  a  love  in  kind ;  and  for  a  Saviour  who  came, 
not  only  in  water  but  in  blood,  there  can  be  no  ade- 
quate faith,  no  adequate  response  which  is  bloodless." 
The  Church  has  gained  nothing  whatever  by  cheapening 
the  terms  of  the  Gospel.  Garabaldi  would  have  got 
nothing  had  he  not  demanded  all.  What  did  Garabaldi 
offer  to  Young  Italy  in  1849  ?  "I  do  not  offer  pay, 
provisions,  or  quarters  :  I  offer  hunger,  thirst,  forced 
marches,  battles,  and  death."  And  that  was  the  cry, 
concluded  the  speaker,  to  which  the  deep  heart  of  his 
people  responded  ;  "  and  when  a  voice  like  that  is 
uttered  in  the  Church  by  men  who  have  the  right  to  utter 
it,  then  we  can  be  sure  that  the  thin  ranks  will  fill  up 
again,  and  our  King  go  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer." 

Such  was  the  sternest  word  spoken  at  Edinburgh. 
The  Church's  need  of  consecrated  men  points  her  back 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       263 

to  a  God  who  Himself  consecrated  His  own  Self  for  the 
redemption  of  the  world. 

Thus  every  aspect  of  the  Home  Base  of  Missions,  dark 
or  bright,  hopeful  or  desperate,  pointed  the  Conference 
to  the  one  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  Home  Base  of 
Missions,  God. 


That  way,  we  saw,  had  pointed  each  of  the  eight  full 
days  of  Conference.  The  eight  Reports  which  had  been 
presented  on  those  eight  days,  like  an  octave  of  notes, 
had  sounded  with  their  first  and  last  the  keynote  of  the 
scale  ;  and  of  the  rest  each  stood  in  clear,  definite  relation 
to  the  master-tone. 

For  the  Commission  to  which  was  assigned  that  first 
day  surveyed  the  superhuman  task,  and  after  taking 
stock  of  all  ways  and  all  means,  could  only  end  thus — 
"  We  are  frank  to  concede  that  it  is  futile  to  talk 
about  making  Christ  known  to  the  world  in  this  or  any 
generation  unless  there  be  a  great  expansion  of  vitality 
in  the  members  of  the  Churches  of  Christendom." 
And  in  so  saying  they  indicated  the  one  thing  so  vitally 
needed  by  theseChurches,  the  deeper  life  in  a  more  deeply- 
known  God.  The  words  clearly  intimated,  further,  that 
the  Commission  that  reported  on  the  last  day  would 
arrive  at  the  same  rinding.  And  this  chapter  on  the 
Home  Base  of  Missions  has  shown  us  how  true  that  intima- 
tion was.  And  between  that  first  and  that  last,  six  other 
Commissions  had  written  six  countersignatures  to  the 
same  message.  One  revealed  a  Church  on  the  Mission 
Field  bound  to  that  at  home  by  the  law  of  organism, 
which  ordained  that  weakness  in  the  one  must  spell 
weakness  in  the  other,  and  that  the  re-baptism  of  the 
Churches  of  the  West  would  assuredly  be  life  to  the 
Churches  of  the  East.     Another  revealed  an  educational 


264  EDINBURGH  1910 

crisis  which  could  only  be  met  by  a  church  which  is 
willing  and  able  immediately  to  reinforce  and  co-operate  : 
and  what  did  these  two  conditions  imply  ?  One  Com- 
mission showed  that  this  co-operation  in  itself,  if  it  is 
going  to  make  any  appreciable  advance  towards  unity, 
necessitates  a  spiritual  revival  which  must  be  in  its 
very  nature  supernatural.  And  another  showed  that 
that  reinforcement  depends,  both  for  its  quantity  and 
its  quality,  on  the  spiritual  state  of  the  churches  which 
have  to  supply,  equip,  and  train  the  reinforcements 
demanded.  Another  looked  out  at  the  so-called  Christian 
nations  and  found  them  harbouring  churches  whose 
hold  on  God  was  not  sufficient  to  influence  the  foreign 
policies  of  those  nations,  nor  to  Christianise  their  dealings 
with  each  other,  with  non-Christian  powers,  or  with  the 
weaker  races  they  dominated.  Another,  finally — the  one 
in  charge  of  an  enquiry  which  was  by  the  very  nature 
of  its  subject  the  most  searching  and  intimate  of  all — 
found  that  the  very  religions  which  Christianity  is  called 
upon  to  antiquate  and  replace  teach  her  that  her  own 
theology  must  first  pervade  all  life,  and  that  her  own  life 
must  first  be  lived  on  the  supernatural  plane,  the  power 
of  a  living  faith  in  a  living  God. 

•  •  •  •  •  • 

And  now  we  have  fully  seen  that  the  Edinburgh  Con- 
ference, in  all  its  Commissions,  Reports,  Discussions, 
and  Addresses,  resolved  that  the  problem  of  missions 
is  the  problem  of  the  Church's  faith  in  God  :  that  the 
only  solution  of  the  problem  of  missions  is  the  Sufficiency 
of  God. 


Some  might  perhaps  say,  the  thought  of  the  Con- 
ference moved  in  a  vicious  circle.  It  now  asseverated 
that,  apart  from  world-wide  evangelisation,  Christendom 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS       265 

would  not  be  given  a  fuller  vision  and  a  stronger  grip 
of  her  Divine  Lord  ;  and  now,  that  without  a  fuller 
vision  and  a  stronger  grip  of  her  Divine  Lord  Christen- 
dom would  not  be  strong  enough  for  world-wide 
evangelisation. 

But  it  is  only  formal  logic  that  calls  such  circles  vicious. 
Nature  and  life  appear  to  work  in  such  circles  :  but  they 
are  then  called  cycles,  not  vicious  circles.  It  is  actually 
the  closing  of  a  circuit  that  makes  electricity  available, 
and  captures  its  current  to  be  a  motive-power  for  man. 
So  perhaps  in  the  world  of  supernature.  It  may  be 
that  these  conclusions  of  the  Conference  reveal  a  super- 
natural cycle.  It  may  be  that  obedience  to  the  spiritual 
law  of  this  particular  circuit,  the  deliberate  closing  of  its 
two  ends,  is  going  to  make  available  a  spiritual  current, 
is  going  to  capture  for  the  Church  a  dynamic  and  a 
motive-power  that  will  be  literally  inexhaustible  so  long 
as  she  keeps  the  two  ends  closed.  Would  not  the  Church's 
use  of  all  the  light  she  has,  her  consecration  of  all  her 
present  strength  to  fulfilling  her  Lord's  command — would 
this  not  mean  the  continuous  solution  of  both  problems 
at  once  ?  Would  not  each  react  upon  the  other  ? 
Obedience  to  the  full  extent  of  her  present  power  would 
increase  her  vision,  and  the  increase  of  the  vision  would 
increase  the  power.  She  will  pray  for  her  own  revival, 
— but  she  will  wait  for  the  answer  at  her  post  of  duty. 


But  how  will  this  revival,  this  new  intensity  of 
knowledge  and  power,  light  and  heat,  come  to  the 
Church  at  the  Home  Base  ?  Will  it  come  as  the  wind, 
sweeping  over  whole  Churches  in  many  countries  at 
once  ?  Allahu  akbar  f  Who  shall  limit  the  power  of 
God,  or  set  bounds  to  what  the  increased  practice  of 
all-powerful  intercession  is  going  to  achieve  in   those 


266  EDINBURGH  1910 

coming  years  ?  Christ  always  seemed  to  be  thinking 
of  the  possibilities  of  prayer.  Man  always  thinks  of 
its  limitations.  But  Edinburgh  1910  has  taught  again 
the  old  lesson,  and  from  henceforth  increasingly  many 
are  going  to  think  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  Christ  about 
prayer,  and  to  look  away  to  God  with  His  eyes. 

But  a  sudden  mass-movement  of  the  whole  Church 
towards  God  and  the  world-mission  is  not  the  only  way 
in  which  the  fulfilment  of  the  hope  kindled  at  Edinburgh 
may  be  looked  for.  May  it  not  also  come  like  an  Alpine 
sunrise  ?  .  .  .  The  high  clouds  kindle  with  their  prophecy 
of  the  dayspring  or  ever  the  sun  is  up. — Suddenly 
the  topmost  peaks  are  smitten  with  a  wondrous  light ! 
The  glory  seizes  on  others,  and  still  others.  .  .  .  See 
where  it  runs  along  the  ridges  !  It  seems  to  flash  from 
ridge  to  ridge  !  .  .  .  Lower  and  lower  it  comes,  invading 
the  mountain-sides,  penetrating  the  valleys.  .  .  .  And  lo, 
the  world  is  light ! — Will  not  this  New  Theology  of  our 
desires  and  our  dreams,  the  faith  which  penetrates  all 
life  and  has  victory  over  all  the  world,  first  take  possession 
of  its  apostles  and  prophets,  perhaps  its  martyrs  also, 
and  from  them,  with  a  rapidity  as  great  as  the  Sun  of 
Righteousness  wills,  communicate  itself  to  this  one  and  to 
that  one,  from  congregation  to  congregation,  one  from 
another  catching  the  new  impulse,  till  Christendom 
find  herself  strong  in  unity  and  in  spirit  as  in  the  days 
of  old  ? 

"  0  Lord,  arise  and  help  us,  and  deliver  us  for  Thine 
honour !  " 


Some  such  thoughts  as  these,  at  least,  seemed  to  be  in 
the  mind  of  the  man  who  in  the  still,  solemn  closing 
meeting  of  the  Conference,  on  the  evening  of  the  day 
of  the  Home  Base   of  Missions,   delivered  the  closing 


THE  HOME  BASE  OF  MISSIONS        267 

address.  The  man  who  had  watched  from  the  chair  of 
the  Conference,  and  recorded  in  his  heart  all  that  had 
been  said  in  those  eight  sessions,  was  now  permitted  to 
open  his  lips.  The  Speaker  now  spoke  for  the  first  and 
last  time.  And  in  that  hour  he  did  not  seem  to  be 
thinking  so  much  of  the  Church  at  the  Home  Base,  as 
of  that  bowed  worshipping  company  of  twelve  hundred. 
Would  they,  each  one  of  them,  perceive  and  believe  the 
availability  of  God  ?  Would  they,  so  perceiving  and  so 
believing,  become  available  for  God  ?  If  they  did,  then 
there  was  good  hope  that  the  Churches  which  they 
represented  would  soon  follow. 

It  was  with  some  such  thoughts  as  these  that  he 
spoke  the  memorable  sentences,  uttered  in  unforgetable 
tones,  with  which  he  opened  that  closing  address — 

"  The  end  of  the  Conference  is  the  beginning  of  the 
Conquest " : 

"  The  end  of  the  Planning  is  the  beginning  of  the  Doing  I  " 

And  later : 

"  God  has  been  silently  and  peacefully  doing  His  ivork, 
but  He  has  infinitely  greater  designs  than  these.  It  is  not 
in  His  will  that  the  influences  set  forth  by  Him  shall 
cease  this  night.  Rather  shall  they  course  out  through  us 
to  the  very  ends  of  the  earth. " 

Also — 

"  Our  best  days  are  ahead  of  us,  and  not  in  these  ten  days 
that  we  have  spent  together,  still  less  in  the  days  that  lie 
behind  them.  Without  question  this  is  proved  .  .  .  ." 
The  mere  facts  of  this  Conference  (he  said)  were  so  many 
clear  pledges  that  our  best  days  are  ahead  of  us,  that  the 
Church's  best  days  are  likewise  still  ahead. 


268  EDINBURGH  1910 

And  then,  and  in  a  final  sentence  which  linked  the 
last  words  of  this  the  very  last  address  at  Edinburgh  1910 
to  the  last  words  of  the  very  first  one,  thereby  closing 
the  circuit,  so  that  same  prophetic  word  once  more 
flashed  dazzlingly  forth — 

"  God  grant  that  we,  all  of  us  .  .  .  may  in  these  next 
moments  solemnly  resolve  henceforth  so  to  plan  and  so  to 
act,  so  to  live  and  so  to  sacrifice,  that  our  spirit  of  reality 
may  become  contagious  among  those  to  whom  we  go  ;  and 
it  may  be  that  the  words  of  the  Archbishop  shall  prove  to 
be  a  splendid  prophecy.  ,  .   ." 

And  these  words,  what  were  they  ?  Christ  Himself 
was  their  Author  and  Giver. 

"  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  There  be  some  here  of 

THEM  THAT  STAND  BY  WHICH  SHALL  IN  NO  WISE  TASTE 
OF  DEATH  TILL  THEY  SEE  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  COME 
WITH  POWER  "  ! 


The  Conference  closed  with  prayer. 


FINIS 


«&ea,  3  come  qutcftlB-'  Hmen;  come,  XotO  Scene. 


ANALYSIS 

IN  LIEU  OF 

INDEX 


The  Roman  numerals  refer  to  the  Chapters, 
The  Arabic  to  the  Sections. 

Introit. 

The  One  World. 

I.  World  History  and  the  World  Mission. 

i.  World  History,  1 900-1 910. 

2.  The  situation  that  faced  those  who  planned   "Edinburgh 

1910." 

3.  Should  the  Conference  be  deliberative  or  demonstrative  ? 

What  must  it  seek  to  know  ? 

II.  The  Preparation  for  the  Conference. 

1.  The  project  of  combined  and  co-ordinated  study  as  pre- 

paration for  the  Conference. 

2.  The  eight  Commissions. 

3.  The  eight  Chairmen  :— Dr  John  R.  Mott,  Dr  J.  C.  Gibson, 

The  Bishop  of  Birmingham,  Professor  D.  C.  Cairns, 
Principal  Douglas  Mackenzie,  Dr  James  L.  Barton,  The 
Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh,  Sir  Andrew  H.  L.  Fraser. 

4.  The  labours  of  the  Commissions. 

III.  "  Edinburgh  " 

The  Palace. 

Edinburgh  and  Athens. 
The  Cathedral  Church. 
The  Two  Assembly  Halls. 
Two  Scenes  from  the  Past. 

IV.  The  Opening  Evening. 

1.  The  Quadrangle  of  the  Council  Hall.  , 

2.  The  Council  Hall.  v 

3.  The  inaugural  prayer. 

4.  The  King's  Message. 

271 


272  EDINBURGH  1910 

IV.  The  Opening  Evening  (Continued). 

5.  Greetings  to  the  Conference. 

6.  The  Lord  President's  inaugural  address. 

7.  Robert  Elliot  Speer  :   his  opening  address. 

8.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury :  his  opening  address. 

9.  Its  significance. 

Appendices  to  Chapter  IV. 

1.  Message  from  the  Imperial  German  Colonial  Office. 

2.  Letter  from  Ex-President  Roosevelt. 

V.  The  Delegates. 

1 .  The  Delegates  ;   the  principle  of  their  selection. 

2.  Their  responsibility. 

3.  Their  ability. 

4.  A  representative  assembly. 

5.  The  Continental  delegates. 

6.  The  English-speaking  delegates. 

7.  The  Missionary  delegates. 

8.  The  Oriental  and  African  delegates. 

9.  The  opening  morning 

VI.  Aspects  of  Procedure. 

1 .  The  reading  of  minutes  and  other  business ;    the  silence  of 

Conference. 

2.  The  bell,  the  seven  minute  rule. 

3.  The  surplusage  of  those  who  wished  to  speak. 

4.  The  Chairman  of  Committee,  John  R.  Mott. 

5.  The  General  Secretary,  J.  H.  Oldham. 

6.  The    Conference    not    dominated    by    any    personality    or 

personalities. 

VII.  "  Carrying  the  Gospel  to  all  the  Non-Christian  World." 
The  Report  of  this  Commission. 

1.  The  vastness  of  the  task. 

2.  Countries  already  occupied  : — Islamic  Africa,  Pagan  Africa, 

Arabia,  Islam  in  Africa  and  Asia,  India,  China,  Korea 
and  Manchuria,  Japan. 

3.  The  unoccupied  fields  of  the  world. 

4.  Necessity  for  co-operation. 

5.  The  essentiality  of  the  Church  on  the  Mission  Field. 

6.  The  state  of  the  Church  at  the  Home  Base  ;    the  message 

of  the  close  of  the  Report. 

VIII.  "The  Church  on  the  Mission  Field." 

1.  There  is  a  Church  on  the  Mission  Field. 

2.  Building  up  the  individual  life  ;   moral  fruits  of  missions. 

3.  The  building  up  of  the  community. 

4.  Self-government  and  self-extension  of    the  Church  on  the 

Mission  Field. 


ANALYSIS  IN  LIEU  OF  INDEX        273 

VIII.  "The  Church  on  the  Mission  Field"  {Continued) 

5.  "Native  Church  "and  "  Foreign  Mission  "   (V.  S.  Azariah's 

speech). 

6.  "  Church  ?  "  or  "  Churches  ?  "  in  the  Mission  Field  (Bishop 

Gore's  speech). 

7.  A  tour  of  the  world  and  its  Churches. 

IX.  "Education    in    Relation    to    the    Christianisation    of 
National  Life." 

1.  The  Importance  of  this  subject. 

2.  The  Report  of  this  Commission. 

3.  The   Chairman   of   the   Commission    and    Professor  M.   E. 

Sadler  on  this  subject. 

4.  Missionary  Education  in  India. 

5.  „  „  in  Islamic  Countries  and  Africa. 

6.  „  ,,  in  Japan. 

7.  Testimony  of  the  Prime  Minister  of  Japan,  Marquis  Katsura. 

8.  Missionary  Education  in  China  ;  speech  of  William  Jennings 

Bryan. 

X.  "  The  Missionary  Message  in  Relation  to  Non-Christian 
Nations." 

1.  The  Uniqueness  of  the  Report  of  this  Commission. 

2.  The  Discussion. 

3.  General  principles  guiding  the  Commission  in  their  view  of 

Non-Christian  Religions. 

4.  Animism  ;  contribution  of  the  younger  Warneck  ;  comment 

of  the  Report. 

5 .  Religion  in  China  and  its  crisis. 

6.  Religion  in  Japan. 

7.  Hinduism  ;    Mohammedanism. 

8.  Necessity  for  the  continuation  of  this  study. 

9.  Connexions  between  this  Commission  and  other  Commissions. 
10.  The  grand  problem  for  the  Church. 

XI.  "Missions  and  Governments." 

1.  The  Report  of  this  Commission. 

2.  General  satisfactoriness  of  the  mutual  relation. 

3.  Attitudes  of  the  French,  German,  and  Dutch  Governments  ; 

of  the  British  Government,  in  India  ;  in  the  Indian 
Native  States,  Egypt,  the  Soudan,  Northern  Nigeria. 
Continental  Missions  and  their  relations  to  Governments. 

4.  Missions  and    non-Christian   Governments  ;     the  Ottoman 

Empire  ;   China  (speech  of  Dr  C.  T.  Wang.) 

5.  The  art  of  making  representations  to  Governments.     (Speech 

of  Lars  Dahle.) 

6.  Relation  of  ruling  nations  to  subject  races  ;   speeches  of  the 

Archbishop  of  York  and  the  Hon.  Seth  Low. 

7.  The  Opium  wrong  (Bishop  Brent  of  the  Philippines).     The 

Liquor  wrong  (Dr  C.  F.  Harford). 


274  EDINBURGH  1910 

IX.  "  Missions  and  Governments  "  (Continued). 

8.  The  Enforced  Labour  wrong  ;   the  Congo  horror  ;    speeches 

of  the  Archbishop  of  York,  and  an  American,  a  Dutch, 
a  British,  and  a  Belgian  delegate. 

9.  Closing  speech  of  Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh ;  the  felt  need  for 

an  organ  of  co-operation. 

XII.  "  Co-operation  and  the  Promotion  of  Unity." 

June  21,  Midsummer's-day,   19 10. 

1.  Allusions  to  the  felt  want  of  an  organ  and  method  of  co- 

operation in  previous  days  of  the  Conference. 

2.  Co-operation  in  the  Mission  Field  ;   in  West  China. 

3.  The  Oriental  point  of  view;  speech  of  Ch'eng  Ching-yi. 

4.  The  "  solemn  act  of  worship,"  the  "  central  act  of  this  day's 

proceedings." 

5.  The  motion  before  the  House  :   a  Continuation  Committee. 

6.  Testimonies  to  the  value  of  such  a  Committee. 

7.  Only  a  first  step  to  a  proposed  International  Committee, 

to  be  reached  gradually. 

8.  Why  the  motion  was  remarkable  :    because  of  the  diversity 

of  the  types  represented  at  Edinburgh. 

9.  How  far  can  or  should  such  diversity  go  ? 

10.  "  The  Promotion  of  Unity." 

1 1 .  Diversity  of  the  views  expressed  this  day. 

12.  Significance  of  this  day's  work. 

13.  The  putting  of  the  motion  :   the  vote. 

14.  The  Doxology. 

Appendices  to  Chapter  XII. 

(1)  Message  to  the  Edinburgh  Conference  from  Mgr.  Bonomelli, 

Bishop  of  Cremona. 

(2)  Citations  on  "  The  Idea  of  the  Church  "  from  H.  G.  Well's 

First  and  Last  Things. 

XIII.  "The  Preparation  of  Missionaries." 

1.  The  Discussion. 

2.  The  Report. 

3.  Professor  Douglas  Mackenzie's  presentation  of  the  Report. 

4.  A  caution  : — the  place  of  "  the  commonplace  missionary," 

and  his  training. 
Fr.  Kelly  of  Kelham's  speech. 

5.  The  Chairman  of  the  Commission  on  this  point. 

6.  The  general  need  for  special   missionary  training.      (Mis- 

sionaries for  Africa  not  excepted.) 

7.  The  indispensable  minimum  : — 

(1)  The  study  of  comparative  religions. 

(2)  The  science  and  history  of  Missions. 

(3)  Sociology. 

(4)  The  teaching  of  how  to  teach. 

(5)  Language-study. 


ANALYSIS  IN  LIEU  OF  INDEX       275 

XIII.  "The  Preparation  of  Missionaries"  (Continued). 

8.  Co-operation  indispensable  to  this  end. 

9.  "  A  last  word  to  the  Church  "  : — 

The  standard  of  the  Home  Church  in  the  last  analysis 
determines  the  standard  of  her  missionaries. 

XIV.  "  The  Home  Base  of  Missions." 
This  question  both  prior  and  ultimate. 

1.  The  Report. 

2.  The  Problem  :— "  The  Moravian  Ideal." 

3.  The  work  among  the  youth  of  the  Church.     Indispensable 

that    all    workers   be    trained.      Address    by  Principal 
W.  L.  Hume  Campbell. 

4.  The  Movement  in  the  Universities  and  Colleges.     Speech  of 

the  General  Secretary  of  the  Student  Christian  Move- 
ment in  Britain. 

5.  The  ministry  of  the  Church  and  missions.      The  theological 

colleges  a  master-key  to  the  problem. 

6.  The  missionary  movement  organised  by  laymen  for  laymen 

(Work  of  laywomen  for  missions). 

7.  Aspects  of  the  Laymen's  Movement.     The  American  dele- 

gates on  these  aspects. 

8.  The  most  concrete  aspect  leads  back  to  the  most  spiritual. 

XIV.  (Concluded)  "  The  Home  Base  of  Missions." 
God,  the  ultimate  u  Home  Base  "  of  Missions. 
Emphasis  on  this  truth  all  through  the  Conference. 
Professor  James  Denney's  evening   address,  and  its    bearing 

on  this  point. 
The  eight  Reports  emphasise  the  same  thing. 
Concluding  paragraphs  : — 

Is  there  here  a  vicious  circle  ? 

How  will  the  revival  come  ? 

The  closing  address  of  the  Conference. 

The  prophetic  word  that  began  it  and  ended  it. 


L'ENVOI 

TO 

THE  READERS  OF  "  EDINBURGH  1910  " 

The  Official  Message  from  the  Conference 
To  the  Members  of  the  Church  in  Christian  Lands. 

Dear  Brethren  of  the  Christian  Church, 

We  members  of  the  World  Missionary  Con- 
ference assembled  in  Edinburgh  desire  to  send  you  a 
message  which  lies  very  near  to  our  hearts.  During 
the  past  ten  days  we  have  been  engaged  in  a  close 
and  continuous  study  of  the  position  of  Christianity 
in  non-Christian  lands.  In  this  study  we  have  surveyed 
the  field  of  missionary  operation  and  the  forces  that  are 
available  for  its  occupation.  For  two  years  we  have 
been  gathering  expert  testimony  about  every  depart- 
ment of  Christian  Missions,  and  this  testimony  has 
brought  home  to  our  entire  Conference  certain  conclusions 
which  we  desire  to  set  forth. 

Our  survey  has  impressed  upon  us  the  momentous 
character  of  the  present  hour.  We  have  heard  from 
many  quarters  of  the  awakening  of  great  nations,  of 
the  opening  of  long-closed  doors,  and  of  movements 
which  are  placing  all  at  once  before  the  Church  a  new 
world  to  be  won  for  Christ.     The  next  ten  years  will 

377 


278  EDINBURGH  1910 

in  all  probability  constitute  a  turning-point  in  human 
history,  and  may  be  of  more  critical  importance  in 
determining  the  spiritual  evolution  of  mankind  than  many 
centuries  of  ordinary  experience.  If  those  years  are 
wasted,  havoc  may  be  wrought  that  centuries  are  not 
able  to  repair.  On  the  other  hand,  if  they  are  rightly 
used  they  may  be  among  the  most  glorious  in  Christian 
history. 

We  have  therefore  devoted  much  time  to  a  close 
scrutiny  of  the  ways  in  which  we  may  best  utilize  the 
existing  forces  of  missionary  enterprise  by  unifying 
and  consolidating  existing  agencies,  by  improving  their 
administration  and  the  training  of  their  agents.  We 
have  done  everything  within  our  power  in  the  interest 
of  economy  and  efficiency ;  and  in  this  endeavour 
we  have  reached  a  greater  unity  of  common  action 
than  has  been  attained  in  the  Christian  Church  for 
centuries. 

But  it  has  become  increasingly  clear  to  us  that  we 
need  something  far  greater  than  can  be  reached  by  any 
economy  or  reorganisation  of  the  existing  forces.  We 
need  supremely  a  deeper  sense  of  responsibility  to 
Almighty  God  for  the  great  trust  which  He  has  com- 
mitted to  us  in  the  evangelisation  of  the  world.  That 
trust  is  not  committed  in  any  peculiar  way  to  our 
missionaries,  or  to  Societies,  or  to  us  as  members  of  this 
Conference.  It  is  committed  to  all  and  each  within 
the  Christian  family  ;  and  it  is  as  incumbent  on  every 
member  of  the  Church,  as  are  the  elementary  virtues 
of  the  Christian  life — faith,  hope  and  love.  That  which 
makes  a  man  a  Christian  makes  him  also  a  sharer  in 
this  trust.  This  principle  is  admitted  by  us  all,  but 
we  need  to  be  aroused  to  carry  it  out  in  quite  a  new 
degree.  Just  as  a  great  national  danger  demands  a 
new   standard   of  patriotism   and   service   from   every 


L'ENVOI  TO  READERS  279 

citizen,  so  the  present  condition  of  the  world  and  the 
missionary  task  demands  from  every  Christian,  and 
from  every  congregation,  a  change  in  the  existing  scale 
of  missionary  zeal  and  service,  and  the  elevation  of  our 
spiritual  ideal. 

The  old  scale  and  the  old  ideal  were  framed  in  view 
of  a  state  of  the  world  which  has  ceased  to  exist.  They 
are  no  longer  adequate  for  the  new  world  which  is  arising 
out  of  the  ruins  of  the  old. 

It  is  not  only  of  the  individual  or  the  congregation 
that  this  new  spirit  is  demanded.  There  is  an  imperative 
spiritual  demand  that  national  life  and  influence  as  a 
whole  be  Christianized :  so  that  the  entire  impact, 
commercial  and  political,  now  of  the  West  upon  the 
East,  and  now  of  the  stronger  races  upon  the  weaker, 
may  confirm,  and  not  impair,  the  message  of  the 
missionary  enterprise. 

The  providence  of  God  has  led  us  all  into  a  new  world 
of  opportunity,  of  danger,  and  of  duty. 

God  is  demanding  of  us  all  a  new  order  of  life,  of  a 
more  arduous  and  self-sacrificing  nature  than  the  old. 
But  if,  as  we  believe,  the  way  of  duty  is  the  way  of 
revelation,  there  is  certainly  implied,  in  this  imperative 
call  of  duty,  a  latent  assurance  that  God  is  greater, 
more  loving,  nearer  and  more  available  for  our  help 
and  comfort  than  any  man  has  dreamed.  Assuredly, 
then,  we  are  called  to  make  new  discoveries  of  the  grace 
and  power  of  God,  for  ourselves,  for  the  Church,  and  for 
the  world  ;  and,  in  the  strength  of  that  firmer  and 
bolder  faith  in  Him,  to  face  the  new  age  and  the  new 
task  with  a  new  consecration. 


280  EDINBURGH  1910 

The  Official  Message  from  the  Conference. 

To  the  Members  of  the  Christian  Church  in  non-Christian 

Lands. 

Dear  Brethren  in  Christ, 

We  desire  to  send  you  greeting  in  the  Lord 
from  the  World  Missionary  Conference  gathered  in  Edin- 
burgh. For  ten  days  we  have  been  associated  in  prayer, 
deliberation,  and  the  study  of  missionary  problems, 
with  the  supreme  purpose  of  making  the  work  of  Christ 
in  non-Christian  lands  more  effective,  and  throughout 
the  discussions  our  hearts  have  gone  forth  to  you  in 
fellowship  and  love. 

Many  cases  of  thanksgiving  have  arisen  as  we  have 
consulted  together,  with  the  whole  of  the  Mission  Field 
clear  in  view.  But  nothing  has  caused  more  joy  than 
the  witness  borne  from  all  quarters  as  to  the  steady 
growth  in  numbers,  zeal,  and  power  of  the  rising 
Christian  Church  in  newly-awakening  lands.  None 
have  been  more  helpful  in  our  deliberations  than  members 
from  your  own  Churches.  We  thank  God  for  the  spirit 
of  evangelistic  energy  which  you  are  showing,  and  for 
the  victories  that  are  being  won  thereby.  We  thank 
God  for  the  longing  after  unity  which  is  so  prominent 
among  you  and  is  one  of  our  own  deepest  longings  to-day. 
Our  hearts  are  filled  with  gratitude  for  all  the  inspiration 
that  your  example  has  brought  to  us  in  our  home-lands. 
This  example  is  all  the  more  inspiring  because  of  the 
special  difficulties  that  beset  the  glorious  position  which 
you  hold  in  the  hottest  part  of  the  furnace  wherein 
the  Christian  Church  is  being  tried. 

Accept  our  profound  and  loving  sympathy,  and  be 
assured  of  our  confident  hope  that  God  will  bring  you 


L'ENVOI  TO  READERS  281 

out  of  your  fiery  trial  as  a  finely-tempered  weapon  which 
can  accomplish  His  work  in  the  conversion  of  your 
fellow-countrymen.  It  is  you  alone  who  can  ultimately 
finish  this  work  :  the  word  that  under  God  convinces 
your  own  people  must  be  your  word  ;  and  the  life  which 
will  win  them  for  Christ  must  be  the  life  of  holiness 
and  moral  power,  as  set  forth  by  you  who  are  men 
of  their  own  race.  But  we  rejoice  to  be  fellow-helpers 
with  you  in  the  work,  and  to  know  that  you  are  being 
more  and  more  empowered  by  God's  grace  to  take  the 
burden  of  it  upon  your  own  shoulders.  Take  up  that 
responsibility  with  increasing  eagerness,  dear  brethren, 
and  secure  from  God  the  power  to  carry  through  the 
task  ;  then  we  may  see  great  marvels  wrought  beneath 
our  own  eyes. 

Meanwhile  we  rejoice  also  to  be  learning  much  our- 
selves from  the  great  peoples  whom  our  Lord  is  now 
drawing  to  Himself ;  and  we  look  for  a  richer  faith  to 
result  for  all  from  the  gathering  of  the  nations  in  Him. 

There  is  much  else  in  our  hearts  that  we  should  be 
glad  to  say,  but  we  must  confine  ourselves  to  one  further 
matter,  and  that  the  most  vital  of  all. 

A  strong  co-operation  in  prayer  binds  together  in 
one  all  the  Empire  of  Christ.  Pray,  therefore,  for  us, 
the  Christian  communities  in  home-lands,  as  we  pray 
for  you  :  remember  our  difficulties  before  God  as  we 
remember  yours,  that  He  may  grant  to  each  of  us  the 
help  that  we  need,  and  to  both  of  us  together  that 
fellowship  in  the  Body  of  Christ  which  is  according 
to  His  blessed  Will. 


MISSIONARY 


JULIUS  RICHTER 

A  History  of  Protestant  Missions  in  the 
Near  East    svo,  cioth,  net  $2.50. 

A  companion  volume  to  "A  History  of  Missions  in  In- 
dia," by  this  {Treat  authority.  The  progress  of  the  gospel  is 
traced  in  Asia  Minor,  Persia,  Arabia,  Syria,  and  Egypt. 
Non-sectarian    in    spirit,    thoroughly   comprehensive    in    scope. 

JOHN  P.  JONES,  P.P. 

The  Modern  Missionary  Challenge 

Yale  Lectures,   igio.      i2mo,    cloth,   net  $1.50. 

These  lectures,  by  the  author  of  "India's  Problem, 
Krisha  or  Christ?"  are  a  re-survey  of  the  demand  of  missions 
in  the  light  of  progress  made,  in  their  relation  to  human 
thought  The  new  difficulties,  the  new  incentives,  are  con- 
sidered by  one  whose  experience  in  the  field  and  as  a  writer, 
entitle   him   to   consideration. 

ALONZO  BUNKER,  P.P. 

Sketches  from  the  Karen  Hills 

Illustrated,    i2mo.   Cloth,   net  $1.00. 

These  descriptive  chapters  from  a  missionary's  life  in 
Burma  are  of  exceptional  vividness  and  rich  in  an  appre- 
ciation for  color.  His  pen  pictures  give  not  only  a  splendid 
insight  into  native  life,  missionary  work,  but  have  a  distinc- 
tive literary  charm   which   characterizes  his   "Soo    Ihah." 

JAMES  F.  LOVE 

The  Unique  Message  and  Universal 
Mission  of  Christianity 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

A  volume  dealing  with  the  philosophy  of  missions  at 
once  penetrating  and  unusual.  It  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most 
original  and  valuable   contributions  to  the  subject  yet  made. 

WILLIAM  EPWARP  GARPNER 

Winners  of  the  World  During  Twenty 

CentUrieS       Adapted  for  Boys  and  Girls. 

A  Story  and  a  Study  of  Missionary  Effort  from  the  lime  of 
Paul  to  the  Present  Day.    Cloth,  net  60c;  paper,  net  30c. 

Children's  Missionary  Series 

Illustrated  in  Colors,  Cloth,  Pecorated,  each,  net  60c. 

Children  of  Africa.    James  B.  Baird. 
Children  of  Arabia.    John  C.  Young. 
Children  of  China.    C.  Campbell  Brown. 
Children  of  India.    Janet  Harvey  Kelman. 


MISSIONARY— TRAVELS 


In  the  Valley  of  the  Nile 

A  Record  of  Missionary  Enterprise  in  Egypt. 
Princeton  Lectures. 
Net,  $1.00.  CHARLES  R.  WATSON 

"The  author  carefully  traces  the  early  rapid  spread  of 
Christian  faith  into  ancient  Egypt  and  the  development  of  the 
Coptic  church,  and  the  spread  of  the  Moslem  faith  over  Chris- 
tianized Egypt.  The  earlier  and  more  transient  Moravian 
missionary  efforts  are  described  and  then  the  American  Pres- 
byterian work  which  has  achieved  such  success.  A  map,  index 
and  bibliography  are  appended.  This  is  an  excellent  refer- 
ence book  as  well  as  informing  traveler's  handbook." — Watch- 
man. 

The  Missionary  Enterprise 

A  Concise  History  of  Its  Objects,  Methods  and  Extension. 

Net,  $1.25.  EDWIN  MUNSELL  BLISS 

As  compiler  of  The  Encyclopedia  of  Missions  and  in  his 
work  as  editor  and  writer  of  special  articles,  the  author 
stored  up  an  immense  amount  of  valuable  knowledge  on  the 
subject  of  Missions.  The  present  work  is  not  merely  a  re- 
vision of  the  author's  earlier  work,  "The  Concise  History  of 
Missions,"  but  a  thoroughly  re-written  work,  considerably 
extended  as  to  scope  and  method  of  analysis,  and  including 
the  latest  data  obtainable. 


Missionary  Experiences  During  Nineteen 

Centuries      Gay  Lectures,  1Q07. 

In  press.  W.  T.  WHITLEY 

The  story  of  missions  in  five  continents,  differs  from  pre- 
vious works  of  this  character  in  that  it  is  written  from  a  view 
point  entirely  historical.  The  defeats  are  considered  as  fully 
as  the  victories;  pitfalls  to  be  avoided  as  well  as  examples  to 
be    followed. 

Adventures  With  Four-Footed  Folk 

and  Other  Creatures  of  the  Animal  World. 

Illustrated,  $1.00.  BELLE  M.  BRALN 

The  author  has  established  a  reputation  through  her  pop- 
ular missionary  readings.  No  one  is  able  to  detect  an  inter- 
esting story  more  quickly.  In  her  latest  work  she  has  selected 
some  of  the  most  thrilling  stories  from  the  mission  field, 
dealing  with  animals  of  all  sort,  from  Egerton  R.  Young  a 
•ledge  dogs  in  the  North  West  to  the  man-eating  tiger  in 
India. 


MISSIONARY 


The  Foreign  Missionary  An  Iacarff£enra°ef  *e  World 

tamo,   Cloth,    $1.50   net.  ARTHUR  J.  BROWN 

Dr.  Brown,  out  of  a  long  and  intimate  experience  deals 
with  such  questions  as,  Who  is  the  Missionary?  What  are 
his  motives,  aims  and  methods?  His  dealings  with  proud 
and  ancient  peoples.  His  relation  to  his  own  and  other 
governments?  His  real  difficulties.  Do  results  justify  the 
expenditures?  How  are  the  Mission  Boards  conducted? 
etc.,  etc.     The  book  is  most  intelligently  informing. 

The  Conquest  of  the  Cross  in  China 

JACOB  SPEICHER 

W5th    Chart  and   Illustrations,    izmo,   Cloth,   $1.50   net. 

The  contents  of  this  book  were  first  delivered  as  lec- 
tures to  the  students  at  Colgate  University.  Mr.  Speicher  has 
the  true  instinct  of  the  news  bringer.  He  has  lived  in  South 
China  long  enough  to  know  it  thoroughly.  He  is  distin- 
guished by  common  sense  in  his  judgments,  made  palatable 
by  a  free  literary  style. 

China  in  Legend  and  Story 

iamo,    Cloth,   $1.25   net.  C.  CAMPBELL  BROWN 

By  one  of  the  C.  M.  S.  best  known  missionaries.  It 
consists  of  seventeen  stories,  true  to  legend  or  to  fact,  ten  of 
them  Btudies  of  the  Chinese  people  as  they  are  when  heathen, 
and  seven  of  them  of  the  same  people  when  they  become 
Christians.  The  stories  cover  a  wide  range  of  social  life, 
representing  every  class  in  the  community,  from  mandarins 
to  thieves  and  beggars.  As  Mr.  Campbell  Brown  is  a  keen 
observer,  and  wields  a  graceful  pen,  the  book  is  unusually 
interesting  and  valuable. 

A  Typical  Mission  in  China 

iamo,  Cloth,  $1,50  net.  W.  E.  SOOTHILL 

"The  book  is  comprehensive,  instructive,  well  written, 
interesting  and  valuable  in  every  way.  Those  who  read  it 
will  get  such  a  glimpse  into  Chinese  life  and  methods  as  they 
may  never  have  had,  and  will  certainly  be  edified  and  stimu- 
lated to  a  new  zeal  in  the  work  of  missions." — Herald  and 
Presbyter. 

Robert  Clark  of  the  Pan  jab  Fio™r&£™™on' 

8vo,  Cloth,  $1  75  net  HENRY  MARTYN  CLARK 

"The  record  of  one  of  the  makers  of  Christian  India:  as 
fascinating  as  a  novel,  and  immensely  more  profitable.  The 
more  widely  this  book  is  circulated  and  read,  the  better  it  will 
be  for  the  missionary  enterprise.  A  book  of  this  character  i« 
the  best  apologetic  that  can  be  written." — Missionary  Intelly 
fencer. 


MISSIONS,  HISTORICAL,  SCIENTIFIC 

OTIS  CARY 

A  History  of  Christianity  in  Japan 

Vo.    I.  A  History  of  Roman   Catholic  and  Greek   Orthodox 

Missions  in  Japan. 
Vol.  II.  A  History  of  Protestant  Missions  in  Japan. 

Each  8vo,  Cloth,  $2.50  net;  2  vols,  boxed  $5.00  net. 

Prof.  Harlan  P.  Beach,  of  Yale  University,  says  "This 
work  will  be  recognized  as  a  standard.  Dr.  Gary  is  one  of 
the  most  scholarly  among  the  entire  Japanese  Missionary 
force  and  his  thoroughness  and  intimate  knowledge  are  de- 
rived from  more  than  thirty  years'  residence  in  Japan." 

JULIUS  RICHTER 

The  History  of  Protestant  Missions 
in  India      8v°,  cioth,  net  $2.50. 

"There  is  hardly  a  single  matter  connected  with  mis- 
sions in  India  upon  which  Dr.  Richter's  book  may  not  be 
consulted  with  the  certainty  of  finding  reliable  and  accurate 
information  and  sound  and  wise  judgment.— Chronicle  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society. 

G.   CAMPBELL  MORGAN 

The  Missionary  Manifesto 

Being  a  Study  of  the  Great  Commission. 
i6mo,   Cloth,   net   75c. 

Dr.  Morgan's  forceful  and  illuminating  studies  find 
ready  welcome  among  thoughtful  readers  and  students.  His 
work  emphasizes  the  imperative  character  of  our  Lord's 
commands  and  its  accompanying  equipment  for  the  servios. 

ROBERT  SLOAN  LATIMER 

Liberty  of  Conscience  Under  Three 
Tsars 

'A  Study  of  Evangelical  Effort  in  Russia  1856*1909.     l2mot 
1         Cloth,   net  $1.50. 

This  struggle  for  liberty  of  conscience,  marked  by  in- 
tense devotion  and  sacrifice,  during  which  men,  women  and 
children  have  suffered  the  keenest  persecution,  counting 
not  their  lives  dear  unto  themselves,  is  replete  with  incidents 
that  awaken  the  largest  sympathy  and  admiration  of  those 
who  have  sought  to  be  true  to  conscience.  Ihe  record  is 
often  most  tragic,  and  can  but  awaken  sympathy  for  the  new 
movement  now  in  progress  in  that  land  so  long  barred 
•gainst  the  light  of  the  open  Bible. 


TRAVEL,  MISSIONARY 


H.  G.    UNDERWOOD 

The  Call  of  Korea 

New  Popular  Edition.  Paper,  net  35c.  Regular  Edition, 
i2tno,  cloth,  net  75c. 
"As  attractive  as  a  novel — packed  with  information.  Dr. 
Underwood  knows  Korea,  its  territory,  its  people,  and  its 
needs,  and  his  book  has  special  value  which  attaches  to  expert 
judgment.  Particularly  well  suited  to  serve  as  a  guide  to 
young  people  in  the  study  of  missions."— Examiner, 

WILLIAM  O.  CARVER 

Missions  in  the  Plan  of  the  Ages 

Bible  Studies  and  Missions.     i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

As  Professor  of  Comparative  Religion  and  Missions  in 
the  Southern  Baptist  Theological  Seminary  at  Louisville,  Dr. 
Carver  has  prepared  in  these  chapters  the  fruit  of  many 
years'  study.  His  aim  is  to  show  that  the  foundation  prin- 
ciples of  the  Christian  task  of  world  conquest  are  found  in 
the  Bible  not  so  much  in  the  guise  of  a  commanded  duty  as 
in  the  very  life  of  the  Christian  faith. 

ANNIE  L.  A.   BAIRD 

Daybreak  in  Korea 

Illustrated,  i6mo,  cloth,  net  60c. 
I  There  can  never  be  too  many  missionary  books  like  tbii. 

A  story  written  with  literary  skill,  the  story  of  a  girl's  life 
■  in  Korea,  her  unhappy  marriage  and  how  the  old,  old  story 

transformed  her  home.     It  reads  like  a  novel  and  most  of  all 

teaches   one,  on  every  page,  just  what  the   Gospel  means  to 

the  far  eastern  homes. 

ISABELLA  RIGGS  WILLIAMS 


By  the  Great  Wall 


Selected    Correspondence    of    Isabella    Riggs    Williams,    Mis- 
sionary   of    the    American    Board    to    China,     1 866-1 897. 
With  an  introduction  by  Arthur  H.   Smith.     Illustrated, 
lamo,  cloth,  net  $1.50. 
"This  volume  is  a  little  window  opened  into  the  life  and 
work    of    an    exceptionally    equipped    missionary.     It    was    at 
Kalgan,    the    northern    gateway    of    China,    that    a    misssion 
station    was    begun    amid    a    people    hard   and   unimpressible. 
It  was  here  that  Mrs.   Williams  won  the  hearts  of  Chinese 
women   and   girls;    here    that    she    showed    what    a    Christian 
home  may  be,  and  how  the  children  of  such  a  home  can  be 
trained  for  wide  and  unselfish  usefulness   wherever  their  lot 
is  cast.     No  object-lesson  is  more  needed  in  the  Celestial  Empire 
than  this.      Many   glimpses   of   that  patient   and  tireless  mis- 
sionary activity  which  makes  itself  all  things  to  all  men  are 
given.0 — Arthur  H.  Smith,  Author  of  Chinese  Characteristics, 
Etc. 


MISSIONS,  BIOGRAPHICAL 


DR.  GEORGE  BROWN 

The  Life  of  Dr.  George  Brown 

Pioneer,  Explorer  and  Missionary.  An  Autobiography, 
with  in  illustrations  and  map.     8vo,  Cloth,  net  $3.50. 

"Since  the  appearance  of  John  G.  Paton's  Autobiography 
•we  have  read  no  work  of  such  entrancing  interest.  It  is  a 
narrative  of  this  pioneer  missionary's  forty-eight  years  of 
residence  and  travel  in  Samoa,  New  Britain,  New  Ireland, 
New  Guinea,  and  the  Solomon  Islands." — British  Weekly. 

JESSE  PAGE,  F.  R.  G.  S. 

The  Black  Bishop    SamueSa^rlthe, 
Preface   by    Eugene    Stock,    D.    C.    L,-,    with    frontispiece, 
sixteen  illustrations  and  map.     8vo,  Cloth,  net  $2.00. 

"The  simple  life-story,  told  mainly  by  himself,  of  a 
West  African  who  was  a  kidnapped  slave  when  a  boy  of  fif- 
teen and  forty-three  years  later  became  the  first  negro  bishop 
of  the  Church  of  England.  Much  information  is  given  be- 
side the  biographical  details,  about  the  problems  presented 
by  the  Nigerian  peoples  to  their  white  rulers  and  particularly 
of  the  extent,  influence  and  probable  future  of  the  Moham- 
medan invasion." — Nation. 

W.  H.  T.  GAIRDNER,  B.  A. 

D    M    Thornton     A  Study  in  Missionary 
u.  ivi.   1  iiumiuu      Ideals  and  Methods- 

Nine  illustrations,  i2mo,   Cloth,   net  $1.25. 

"The  Student  Movement"  says:  "It  is  likely  to  dominate 
the  thoughts  of  the  missionary  thinker  for  many  years." 
Devoted  largely  to  experiences  in  Egypt  and  lessons  gath- 
ered on  this  field — it  tells  of  a  man  who  devoted  his  intel- 
lectual powers  to  thinking  out  the  wider  problems  of  the 
evangelization  of  the  world  and  the  spread  of  Christian  in- 
stitutions in  Mission  lands. 

GEORGE  HAWKER 

The  Life  of  George  Grenfell, 

Congo  Missionary  and  Explorer 

Illustrated,   8vo,    Cloth,   net   $2.00. 

"This  may  be  regarded  as  a  companion  volume  to  Sir 
Harry  Johnston's  'George  Grenfell  and  the  Congo' — it  was, 
indeed,  originally  arranged  that  Sir  Harry  Johnston  and  Mr. 
Hawker  should  collaborate  in  a  single  volume  as  a  memorial 
to  one  of  the  greatest  names  in  the  annals  of  equatorial 
Africa." — London    Times. 

REV.  JAMES  WELLS,  D.  D. 


Stewart  of  Lovedale 

The  Romance  of  Missions  in  Africa  told  in  the  Life  of 
James  Stewart,  D.  A.,  M.  D.,  F.  R.  G.  S.  With  forty-two 
illustrations  and  two  maps.     8vo,   Cloth,  net  $1.50. 

"We  may  heartily  congratulate  Dr.  Wells  on  having 
written  a  book  that  will  live,  and  more  than  that,  a  book  that 
■will  create  life  wherever  it  is  read." — Dr,  Robertson  Nicoll, 
in  the  British   Weekly. 


IN  OTHER  LANDS 


Poland,  the  Knight  Among  Nations 

With  Introduction  by  Helena  Modjeska. 
Illustrated,  Cloth,  $1.50  net.  LOUIS  E.  VAN  NORMAN 

Poland  is  worth  knowing — it  is  interesting.  How  could 
it  be  otherwise  when  it  gave  us  Copernicus,  Kosciusko, 
Chopin,  Paderewski  and  Sienkiewicz.  Not  much  has  been 
known  about  the  people  because  they  have  been  hard  to 
get  at.  Mr.  Van  Norman  went  to  Cracow,  won  the  hearts 
of  the  people,  was  treated  like  a  guest  of  the  nation  and 
stayed  till  he  knew  his  hosts  well,  and  he  here  conveys  an  ex- 
tensive array  of  information. 

The  Continent  of  Opportunity:  south  America 

Profusely  illustrated,  $1.50  net.  FRANCIS  E.  CLARK 

Dr.  Clark  writes  from  a  thorough-going  tour  of  examina- 
tion, covering  practically  every  centre  of  importance  in  South 
American  continent,  Panama,  Chile,  Ecuador,  Peru,  Argen- 
tine, Brazil,  Paraguay  and  Uruguay.  Dr.  Clark's  prime 
object  has  been  to  collect  information  of  every  sort  that 
•will  help  to  understand  the  problems  facing  Civilization  in 
our  sister  Continent. 

China  and  America  To-day 

umo,  Cloth,  $1.25  net.  ARTHUR  H.  SMITH 

Dr.  Smith  is  one  of  America's  ablest  representatives  at 
foreign  courts.  He  is  not  so  accredited  by  the  government 
of  this  country,  but  rather  chooses  to  be  known  as  a  mis- 
sionary to  China.  In  this  capacity  he  has  learned  much  of 
China  which  in  another  relation  might  be  denied  him.  Being 
a  statesman  by  instinct  and  genius,  he  has  taken  a  broad 
survey  of  conditions  and  opportunities  and  here  presents  his 
criticisms  of  America's  strength  and  weakness  abroad. 

Ancient  Jerusalem 

Illustrated,     In  press.  HON.  SELAH  MERRILL 

This  work  will  immediately  be  recognized  as  authorita- 
tive and  well  nigh  final.  Dr.  Merrill,  as  the  American 
Consul,  has  lived  at  Jerusalem  for  many  years,  and  has 
given  thirty-five  years  of  thorough,  accurate  study  and  ex- 
ploration to  this  exhaustive  effort.  It  contains  more  than 
one  hundred  maps,  charts,  and  photographs. 

Palestine  Through  the  Eyes  of  a  Native 

Illustrated,  $1.00  net.  GAMAHLIEL  WAD-EL-WARD 

The  author,  a  native  of  Palestine,  has  been  heard  and 
appreciated  in  many  parts  of  this  country  in  his  popular 
lectures  upon  the  land  in  which  so  large  a  part  of  his  life 
was  spent.  His  interpretation  of  many  obscure  scriptural 
passages  by  means  of  native  manners  and  customs  and  tra- 
ditions k  particularly  helpful  and   informing. 


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GAYLORD  #3523PI        Printed  in  USA 


